


all i need

by goreyer



Category: Football RPF
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Highschool AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-04-13 20:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14120115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goreyer/pseuds/goreyer
Summary: Mario didn't really want to be the one to tutor Marco Reus. The other boy intimidated him, and he had that self important air about him that Mario hated. But it was extra credit and a good thing to put on his university application, regardless of how little he was going to enjoy the interactions.





	1. Chapter 1

_"Could Marco Reus please report to the student councelor as soon as possible."_

Marco had been called into the student counselor's office exactly 23 times this year. This was going to be his 24th. It wasn't as if he was particularly badly behaved or needed the mental help; no. They were most likely going to ask him why his grades were slipping and how much better he had performed in his exams the years before, like they did every other one of the 23 times he had been in there. It wasn't his fault he was falling behind his classmates, he had football practice almost everyday which meant he missed lots of lessons that were deemed so crucial by the school that he was asked to talk to the teachers of every lesson he missed and pick up the work. Marco never did. If they wanted to give him the work, they could give it to him themselves. Besides, his football career was taking off, he didn't really need to do well in school anyway. 

Nevertheless, he picked up his bag from beside his seat and left the room without a word to his teacher, slinging the backpack over his shoulder in an action that almost decapitated one of the students sitting in the front row. Not that Marco really cared. He didn't care about anyone in his English class, none of them were his friends so he took it as a liberty to annoy all of them in any way he could. It may seem rude but to be honest, they had the opportunity to say something back, just none of them did. So it wasn't that bad.

In typical Marco fashion, he trundled through the halls as slowly as his feet could manage, trying to ensure he missed as much of the lessons as he possibly could by the time this meeting was over. Yet when he neared the corridor to the student counselor's office, she was already outside waiting for him and he had to start walking faster to avoid getting told off (which usually wouldn't bother him, but the student counselor wasn't someone he wanted to mess with). She ushered him inside hurriedly and took a seat behind her desk, pointing a hand out for Marco to sit down opposite, which he did with as little enthusiasm as possible.

"So, Marco. Me and the rest of the staff are worried about your grades," She began, and almost instantly, Marco switched off. It was always the same story, he was performing poorly, he needed to get his act together, he was making the school look bad. What was he meant to do to help that? He couldn't exactly give up football, it was the only thing he was enjoying and he had worked so hard to get to where he was and it was finally paying off. He wasn't going to jeopardize that for getting a couple of A's in a school that he doesn't care about.

He became so bored sitting there in the office with nothing to do but listen to the muffled voice of the counselor he was trying so hard to blur out that he started watching the clock tick by, second by second, minute by minute. Even trying to make out the words spoken by the tannoy system as they rung out through the empty corridors that were just too far away for him to hear, was more interesting than listening to his work ethic being questioned. 

"What do you think about that then?" Her voice rose a couple of decibels and Marco was forced to hear her.

"Sure." He muttered, without any idea about what he had just agreed to. Knowing his school, it was probably a reward for going and collecting his work - which, even if that was the case, he still wouldn't have done it. 

The counselor looked almost shocked for a minute but then nodded after a while and walked out of the office, leaving Marco in a confused silence that only lasted for a couple of seconds before the door swung open again and she had returned, with a boy Marco had only seen around school a couple of times. Well, Marco wasn't sure if it was actually the guy he was thinking of or the ghost of him, because the kid had turned such a sickly white at the sight of Marco. The latter didn't know whether to feel offended or proud. 

"Marco, this is Mario, he's going to be your tutor." The counselor announced.

Marco almost choked on nothing in particular "Tutor?!" He half-yelled.

"Him?!" Mario murmured in a lower tone, but with the same amount of incredulity.

At that exact moment, Marco vowed to never zone out again. He'd just said yes to being tutored by this nerd who looked like he was about to pass out. Being tutored was insult enough but by him? It was almost embarrassing. 

"Yes, to both of you. Marco, you needed a tutor, Mario you needed extra credit and something different to put on your university applications, so this is the perfect opportunity to fill both of these criteria. I expect tutoring almost every day, and at the end of every week I want proof that you have in fact actually done some work."

Marco stared at her, "But what if I have football?"

"Then you make time during school. In fact, why not right now. I'll excuse you from your lessons for the rest of today and you can spend it organizing your tutoring sessions."

That didn't seem like too bad of an offer, I mean, he could miss lessons, but then again, it was for something as stupid as tutoring. 

Marco just shrugged which prompted Mario to nod reluctantly. When the counselor dismissed them, Marco sped out of the door as quickly as his legs could carry him and raced down the corridor, attempting to put as much space between him and Mario as possible.

"Marco!" He ignored his name being called from down the hall and just carried on walking in no particular direction, but the loud patter of footsteps from behind him signaled that Mario was literally running to catch up with him, and if Marco hadn't had such a grueling training session in the early hours of the morning, he may have been up for running away, but he was tired and altogether done with the day already. There wasn't much that could make it worse.

"S-shall we go to the library?" Mario puffed out once he stood beside Marco.

"Definitely not." The latter replied, "the library's for fucking nerds. Lets just sit on the field or something."

Mario looked too intimidated to argue so he adjusted his backpack on his shoulders and trailed a couple of feet behind Marco, almost too scared to walk closer to him. They walked in complete silence across the school, ignoring the few strange looks a couple of teachers passed them as they saw two year 13 boys walking the halls during lesson times. The field was probably the farthest place from the counseling office, just to Marco's luck. So the awkward silence stretched for such a long time it was beginning to even make Marco anxious, in a way he hadn't experienced before. 

Nevertheless, they reached the field, with Marco attempting to fill at least some of the silence nearing the end of their journey by walking loudly on the stone paths, not really caring if he looked stupid from an outside party. He was already walking with Mario, so how much more stupid could he get.

A soft breeze passed through Marco's hair upon standing in the open expanse of grass. It was cold, but manageable especially if he got himself up and moving. Whilst Mario moved towards a bench in the corner, Marco raced towards where he knew his group of friends kept the football they played with at lunchtime at and began to kick it about; the energy he complained about not having suddenly coming back when the ball came to his feet. 

Football was really the only escape he had from the stresses of school life. Perhaps he cared more about his failing grades than he wanted to let on; I mean everyone should care about their grades, right? But there was something about the disappointed looks on his teachers faces whenever they handed him back a failed test that made his heart sink in the most pathetic way possible and he always felt angry for caring so much. He had lost too many football matches over the years for something as paltry as an end of unit test to give him so much grief. 

That's why he envied Mario. The kid was obviously smart, otherwise why would he be tutoring Marco? It seemed unfair how some people just seemed to grasp learning about the things they did in class, whilst people like Marco had to work extortionate amounts just to scrape an A. 

"Are you coming to work or not?" Mario asked, sitting on top of the bench rather than the seats. 

Marco didn't answer, he just continued to kick the ball against the fence; automatically and without much thought. Just alternating with which foot he struck the ball with. He had been trained well to use his weaker foot, so it felt entirely natural now.

"Marco, I don't know about you but I really need to do this. It might be the only way I can get into a good university. So can you please like, make an effort?" Mario piped up again this time louder.

"Bullshit, you get straight A's all the time, there's no way this is going to decide what university you get into. Don't try and fuck with me." Retorted Marco, not even gracing Mario with looking him in the eye.

He heard a sigh from the other party and a soft mumble, but Marco didn't care enough to work out what he said. Instead he carried on lacing the ball against the fence, pulling out a couple of tricks and skills for practice more than anything, though he hoped it impressed Mario - he wanted to show people the reason why he was failing at school.

"You know that shit isn't that cool." Mario mumbled and this time Marco did catch it.

Marco flicked the ball up into his hands and turned to Mario, "Oh yeah? Why don't you give it a try." He offered, holding the ball out.

Mario flushed a bright pink and looked as though he had seen a ghost, "well, I don't really, um... I could but I j-"

"Yeah, that's what I thought." 

Marco stood for a number of seconds, observing the blush as it slowly faded from Mario's cheeks and for a moment he almost found it cute, before he remembered who this kid was and what he would have to deal with for this next term. However, in that short moment, he felt strangely sympathetic for the kid; he hadn't expected to be paired with someone as stubborn as Marco, so he was probably hating it just as much. And Marco was sure that if he had cared enough about his grades and what he was going to do after high school, he would've jumped on an opportunity like this for an easy chance to get extra credit. 

So he swallowed his pride and sat down next to Mario on the bench, dropping the ball off to the side as he did so.

"Fine. You can tutor me. But I'm going to hate it." Marco sighed.

"I won't get much joy out of it either believe me." Replied Mario, pulling out a notepad and pen from his backpack, "so, what days are you free to study and stuff?"

"I have practice most mornings and then evenings too, but I'm usually free straight after school for a couple hours and then Fridays I don't have evening sessions because we have matches on either day of the weekend, but I can't promise I'll be free then, it depends what my friends are doing. But I can usually do the day after or before a match." 

Mario nodded along to his words and drew a few symbols on his notepad - ticks and crosses from what Marco could see.

"So shall we say straight after school Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday then for however long on whatever day you're free on the weekend?" Mario asked, consulting his notepad before every word he spoke.

"Sure, yeah fine." Marco murmured suddenly remembering how much time he would be wasting on some kid he didn't know and frankly didn't want to know. 

"Right okay then, that's sorted." Mario smiled for the first time since he had first seen Marco and it was an action that made Marco fight against smiling himself. "Are you going to go back to your lessons now?"

Marco scoffed, "fuck no. You heard the councilor, we're off timetable for the rest of the day."

"Y-yes, but I'm sure that was meant to be time to do actual work." 

"Playing football should count as actual work seeing as it is kind of my job." Marco countered, picking the ball back up and doing a couple of keepy-uppies with it. 

He heard Mario laugh softly, and he was acutely aware of the other boys eyes firmly fixed on him; so much so that he could feel the holes burning through his skin where he was looking. It didn't make him selfconcious or anything because that would be stupid, but it was the first time he could properly feel someone staring at him with such intensity that it made his skin crawl - and strangely in a good way. 

It was a Wednesday that day, so Marco knew he would have to revise after school with Mario and somehow find a reason for not being able to go out with his friends. He could use the football excuse as he normally did for something like a family dinner or just tell them the truth; but the latter option would cause him so much grief it didn't seem worth it. He just settled on going to tell them he had practice early because his coach had plans in the evening. It was a believable excuse and one none of his friends would check, so it seemed easy enough.

Now he just had to get through spending around two hours with a complete stranger. Great.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  


	2. Chapter 2

Marco almost walked past Mario whilst he was leaving school. Perhaps he was trying to avoid the other boy in hopes he would forget about their after school arrangement and just go home as normal. But no, Mario tapped Marco on the shoulder as he walked past causing said shoulders to droop as he realized this actually was happening. 

"So d-do you want to go to your house or mine?" Mario asked, looking everywhere but Marco's face.

"Yours." Mumbled Marco. He really didn't want one of his friends crashing at his uninvited and finding him hanging out with some nerd doing revision. Instead of waiting for Mario's response, he began walking in any random direction, despite not knowing where Mario lived at all, but Mario appearing at his side told him he was going the right way. Marco was determined to not look as though he was walking  _with_ Mario so he dropped back a couple of steps and let the other boy take the lead.

He felt slightly rude for completely ignoring Mario on the walk to his, but there wasn't much to be said. They were both being made to do this pretty much against their will, so polite conversation wasn't really on the cards. When they eventually reached the house in question, Mario hurried upstairs, throwing his shoes off in the process. Marco stood still at the bottom of the stairs for a few moments looking confused at the path he had taken and why he seemed to be in such a rush, but regardless he followed him up absentmindedly looking at the pictures on the walls and making a mental image of all the people in them - an action he did often and didn't really know why.

Eventually, he made it to the door to Mario's room which was cracked open just a tad, letting some light into the dim hallway. Marco pushed it open and flung his bag across the room, watching as it landed just next to the side of Mario's bed. The shorter boy was digging through his wardrobe in the corner of the room, his tie already off and discarded alongside his blazer.

"I'm gonna change. I hate being in school uniform at home." Mario mumbled to justify his actions. Marco understood, he hated it as well, he was beginning to feel almost choked in his shirt and tie. 

Mario sped out of the room, closing the door with force after him, leaving Marco to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room, looking around at the interior. It was quaint, almost bland, like Mario didn't spend much time in here at all. Whilst he waited for Mario to return, Marco took some books out of his bag and placed them down on the bed, arranging them in the order of the subjects that he felt he needed the most help in. Maths was first, he didn't understand it at all, it just seemed stupid and pointless, but then again most things in school are. 

Mario returned after a couple of minutes in a hoodie and some loose jeans and Marco was envious. It looked much more comfy than his uniform and he silently wished he had brought a change of clothes with him. 

"Do you want to change too? I don't mind lending you a sweatshirt or something." Mario asked with his back to Marco as if he was reading his mind.

Marco didn't know what to say, would it be weird if he said yes? He obviously wanted to change, but it was slightly strange to ask for some kids sweatshirt that he didn't properly know existed before the morning. Eventually, he felt stupid for feeling so insecure. He wanted to feel comfortable and he didn't care what Mario thought of him. 

"Yeah, that'd be cool, cheers." Marco replied after a couple of moments.

Mario just nodded and fished a sweatshirt from a drawer in his wardrobe and chucked it over to Marco. It was black with the Borussia Dortmund crest on the front. Marco smiled at it - he loved Dortmund. It broke his heart to leave the academy last year, but it was the best choice for his career, Rot Weiss Ahlen gave him more playing time and focused a lot more on nurturing him as a player. But something in his heart told him that he would be returning to the black and yellow of Dortmund at some point in his life.

"My dad gave me that. I-I don't like football that much." Explained Mario when he saw Marco staring at the sweatshirt fondly. 

"I don't understand how people can't like football." Marco sighed, shrugging off his blazer and untying his tie. "It's like the best sport ever."

Mario pulled a face, "That's just because you've played it your whole life. It just never appealed to me."

With a quick indifferent mumble, Marco began to undo the buttons of his shirt and he had never seen someone look away so quickly in his life. Mario's gaze shot to the pictures on his wall and an embarrassed blush crept onto his cheeks. Marco bit back a laugh by pursing his lips tightly together, but they relaxed into a smile. Mario's awkwardness was beginning to grow on him. When he tugged his shirt off and replaced it with the sweatshirt, an overwhelming smell invaded his nostrils. It was strangely familiar and homely. And seemed so  _Mario_. Marco didn't know how he could make that comparison since he didn't know him at all, but the scent just matched his mannerisms perfectly. 

When Marco looked up at Mario, he saw the other boy looking right back for little more than a millisecond before Mario's gaze drifted to the books on the bed in front of Marco.

"So, what are we doing first?" Mario asked.

Marco pointed to his maths book on the bed, "Maths."

The shorter boy nodded and placed his own maths book on the bed.

"What topic in maths?"

"Damn, I don't know, all of them?" Marco murmured, scratching the back of his neck.

Mario smiled and it reached his eyes: the corners crinkled softly but the irises shone like hazel diamonds and Marco fought hard not to stare. He was being pathetic again. Embarrassingly pathetic. This was Mario Götze he was looking at. 

"Okay, so how about we start with exponential and logarithmic functions?" Mario asked, flicking through a few pages in his book.

"You what?" Marco scoffed. What the hell is an exponential? Damn, he must really be behind. 

Very suddenly, Marco felt dumb. If he didn't understand this, what else didn't he understand? Surely if Mario had suggested to do something like this first, then it had to be one of the easier subjects, right? So that meant it would only get harder than this. Great. Marco became acutely aware of how large Mario's sweatshirt was on him, so he tugged the sleeves over his hands and fiddled with the edges, avoiding eye contact so Mario didn't see how a small blush was threatening to show onto his face. 

"They're quite easy once you get the hang of it, I promise." Mario sensed Marco's discomfort quickly.

Marco looked up, "of course you say that, you know this stuff, you pay attention! I just don't understand any of this shit, if it's easy for you that doesn't mean anything because it'll probably still be hard for me to even slightly understand. I'm just dumb and can't grasp that shit." 

Perhaps he was being dramatic, but it was the truth. There was no way he was going to understand this stuff if he can barely understand the stuff his qualified teacher teaches him. It wasn't his fault he just couldn't grasp the point of maths. It just seemed stupid and unnecessary and too hard. Footballers weren't meant to be good at maths anyway, were they? It's not like he was going to have to work out the trajectory of his football when he kicks it at 50 miles per hour at a 56 degree angle in the middle of a football match. No. He just has to know how to win a match. And that has nothing to do with maths. 

For a quick moment, Marco felt like just leaving Mario's house and running back to school to cancel this tutoring. If he failed his exams, that was too bad. He may feel like shit because of them, but then all he would need to do is win a big match and all would be forgotten about. After all, would he rather ace his exams or score the winning goal in the champions league final for his dream team. The answer was simple.

"It's not that deep, Marco, trust me. Will you let me explain it to you?" Mario probed, trying to catch Marco's gaze as it drifted back down to his hands.

"You can try." Marco sighed, "I can guarantee I won't understand it, but sure." 

Mario nodded and smiled again, even wider than last time, which Marco didn't think was possible. He shifted a few books around and crawled over to sit next to Marco, placing a textbook in front of them both, open on a page titled 'Logarithmic Functions'. Looking at the page made Marco's brain hurt. It didn't make any sense whatsoever. His dumbfounded expression must've been particularly visible because Mario bumped his shoulder and raised his eyebrows;

"Don't look at it. It'll only make it look more confusing, just listen to me explain it to you." He said, moving away from Marco's side quickly to grab a pen from his pencil case before returning just as quickly, this time with his knee touching Marco's a small action that made his words seem more meaningful and believable. 

And so, Marco took a deep breath and put all his energy into not thinking about how hard this shit was and how much he was going to bomb all his exams. Instead, he focused on the sleeves of Mario's sweatshirt, fussing around the fraying edges that suggested Mario wore the garment a lot, despite his self-proclaimed dislike of football. Marco could convince him to love the beautiful game in time. He had a habit of being able to convince people. 

He also breathed deeply to inhale that homely scent and it successfully calmed him down. He knew he was acting like a weirdo, but if something helped, it helped. Regardless of what it is.

"You ready?" Mario queried and upon receiving a tentative nod, he smiled, "right. Let's start from the beginning then."

*-*

Marco sketched down a number in his notebook and held it up to Mario. He was confident. For once, he was confident about an answer in maths. He understood something. He was getting the hang of it.

Mario beamed and that was enough to tell Marco that he had done it right. In fairness, Mario was right, it wasn't that difficult of a topic to understand, but nevertheless, Mario had actually helped him. 

"Fuck man, watch out Einstein I'm coming for you." Marco scoffed, throwing the notebook against the bed triumphantly. 

Mario laughed and wow, Marco almost looked at the lights to check if they had brightened because the room had seemed to get suddenly lighter at the noise. 

"I'll keep an eye out for you on TV when you become a famous mathematician." Mario replied, still fighting off some chuckles. 

Marco finally felt as though he had accomplished something good when it came to school. All he had done was answer one question, but at that moment, he really believed he could do well in his exams. Which was quite stupid, seeing as this was one topic out of the many he would still have to learn, but Mario seemed like a competent teacher so he was, dare he say it, optimistic.

"Right well, I think we should quit while we're ahead, there's no point in doing more, right?" Marco suggested pretty much rhetorically as he sunk down into the mattress, eager to relax before training in the evening. 

Mario paused, a moment in which Marco guessed he had rolled his eyes, "sure thing. We can stop there."

Marco sighed contentedly and stared up at the ceiling. Once again, it came as a surprise to him that Mario's room was very scarcely decorated, perhaps he was going for the minimalist look, but even Marco had stuff all over his walls, despite it being labelled as 'uncool'. His various posters of Borussia Dortmund players weren't 'uncool' thank you very much.

Regardless of his choice of decor, Mario's room was nice. It was spacious, even with a number of piles of cluttered items that most teenagers had in their room at some point. Much more spacious than Marco's room, but he guessed it was because Mario was slightly more well off than him, from the outside he could tell his house was rather posh. Marco aimed to buy a house like this for his parents one day, maybe even more grand, once he had a good salary from playing football. 

The sound of keys rattling in the front door's lock filled the comfortable silence and Marco thought nothing of it; he liked to think he was charming enough around adults to get along with them, so if it was one of Mario's parents at the door, he was certain he could make a good first impression. However, Mario was far from agreement and he began tugging on his own sweatshirt that enveloped Marco's body.

"You have to leave." Mario rushed, tugging with even more force now, "Sorry, but I just need you to leave. Out the window is fine. Oh and you can keep the sweatshirt I don't care like I said I don't like football and you looked as though you liked Dortmund so there you go have it."

"W-wait what, is everything okay? You don't need to push me you know." Marco flapped his hands as if to prove his point, batting away those of Mario as he was ushered towards the window.

"Yeah, everything's fine you're just going to have to trust me. See you tomorrow at school or not I don't know, whatever. Have fun at practice." Mario's voice got quieter as Marco edged onto the roof outside, it was slightly sloped but he held onto the gutter above him for balance and managed to get far enough away from the window that he stopped hearing Mario's voice altogether. He got to a point where he could jump down onto a small brick wall in the back garden and did so with ease, hopefully with less noise than he heard himself, but from the lack of screaming about an intruder, he assumed he was fine.

Once back on level ground, Marco wandered round the side of the house and made it back out to the driveway where a black Mercedes was now parked. Damn, Mario really was quite rich. Though Marco didn't stand around worshiping the car like he wished he was able to. Instead, he sped out of the driveway and only slowed down when he was sure he was out of eye-line of any windows of the house. 

Only at that point did he realize how strange that past five or so minutes was. Mario didn't seem overly fearful, perhaps just embarrassed. Though it seemed to be slightly odd that he would be embarrassed by a certain family member coming back from work. Marco shrugged to no one in particular and wandered back home slowly, enjoying the fleeting light before the flying tackles and mud stained skin he would be experiencing in a couple of hours time.

When he knocked on the door to his house, his sister, Yvonne, opened it with a skeptical expression. 

"Did you skip school again?" She asked, without letting Marco in.

"No? Why? Does mum think I did or something?" Marco replied with as much skepticism as she had.

Yvonne shrugged, "No it's just you're not in your school uniform so I thought you'd skipped or something."

Oh. Right. He had forgotten to pick up his uniform and was still in Mario's sweatshirt.

"I just went over to a mates." Marco reasoned without much conviction and Yvonne finally let him into the house.

 

 

"Nice new sweatshirt by the way."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Mario tried excruciatingly hard not to zone out. Geography was probably his least favourite lesson and it didn't help that his teacher was speaking in the most monotonous voice possible. No matter how many times he brought his thoughts back to the task at hand, they always slipped back to anything other than Geography. And so he daydreamed. He was far enough ahead in Geography for it not to be detrimental to do so. 

He daydreamed about lots of things. What he was going to do this weekend; what he was going to have for dinner when he got home; what he was going to teach Marco after school. He would be lying if he said he hadn't been looking forward to it. Because, frankly, Mario would be lying if he said he didn't find Marco the slightest bit attractive. 

Mario didn't know when he made this discovery, because he hadn't noticed Marco around school before, but perhaps it was when he whipped off his shirt in front of Mario without a care in the world. 

You see, Mario was gay. He had known for a while and so he was used to finding other boys attractive, but it seemed different with Marco. Probably because the other boys he fancied at least paid him a slither of attention. But anyway, he didn't like Marco any more than just a piece of eye-candy, and it was obvious he didn't think of Mario as anything more than some nerd who was teaching him because the school made it so.

Mario still had Marco's uniform at home, folded neatly away inside a drawer in his wardrobe. It smelt strongly of the other boys cologne - not that he smelt it or anything, it was just the scent lingered in the air even after Marco had disappeared out of the window.

Mario wished he hadn't had to have done that but Mario's dad wasn't really fond of him having friends round, especially not other guys. When Mario came out to him, the rift that began to grow after Mario had expressed his dislike of football, just grew even more. He was sure his dad wasn't homophobic or anything, but ever since then, he scolded Mario furiously whenever he had guys round because 'he didn't want to come home to see them making out on the sofa' despite the explanation that they were just his friends.

When his parents divorced, they ended on good terms, but because of how badly Mario's dad took him coming out, his mother was angry at the lack of support. Despite Mario saying that he wanted to stop going to his dads, his mother refused, saying that for as long as his dad had custody, they had to see each other. 

And so Mario kept going along all the same, shifting between houses every week, enjoying the time at his mums and dreading the time at his dads. He wasn't looking forward to telling Marco about it, but hopefully the other boy would just turn a blind eye to it and carry on treating Mario like he didn't exist.

The sound of his classmates packing their things away broke Mario out of his rather successful daydream. He had managed to waste over 20 minutes of the lesson just staring out into space. He'd get one of his friends to send him the classwork later, if they even did any work that is. 

The teacher dismissed them halfheartedly and Mario was the first to rush out of the classroom. After lunch he had a free period, so he had already planned to walk around town with his friends for a while before meeting up with Marco back at his house. 

"Mario!" He whipped his head around to see where the noise was coming from and found the voice connected to one of his best friends, Alisha, who was speeding up to him with the biggest grin on her face.

"No! Absolutely not. I'm not going to watch the football club with you." Mario already knew what she was going to suggest. She did it every Friday lunch and to Mario, sitting on the field watching the football team kick a ball around for an hour is not how he wanted to spend his relaxing time.

Alisha's face dropped and she stuck out her bottom lip dramatically, "please, Mario! It's not that bad!"

Mario raised one eyebrow at her which made her scoff.

"I'll pay for you to get food when we go into town?" Alisha reasoned. 

And to be honest, it was tempting. Mario had already spent all his money from work and he hated all the food that the school sold, but he knew he would get hungry at some point.

"Fine. But I swear to God if you're scamming me right now I'm going to be disgusted." Mario sighed reluctantly. 

Alisha squealed, "thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise I will buy you food, you know I'm good for it."

Mario hummed his skepticism but let her drag him in the direction of the field. He knew the real reason she wanted to go and watch the football, and it was something with two legs. rugged brown hair, amazing abs and its name began with an 'M' and ended with an 'ats'. If Mario wasn't, well, him, he would definitely be on that. Mats Hummels was a walking Greek God, and actually a seemingly nice one at that.

When they reached the field, none of the team were out yet, but the coach was setting up some cones presumably for drills. Alisha sped up the pace and practically threw her bag onto the bench nearest the playing field, shooting a group of year 11's a glare as if to say 'go on, try sit there, I dare you.' 

Not long after they sat down, Erik began walking up the entrance to the field and waved when he spotted them. Erik was like the comedy relief in the group; while he was around it was impossible to keep a straight face.

"Alright gang?" Erik said extravagantly as he sat down next to Mario, "Who's she gawping at this week?"

Alisha made a hurt expression and was about to defend herself when Mario interrupted,

"Mats Hummels, again, of course." He stated.

Erik laughed and rolled his eyes at Alisha who just kept her stony expression for a moment longer before losing it when she saw said heartthrob enter the pitch. Mario saw her expression change quickly and turned his head to see the players filling up the pitch in their training kits with gleaming bright orange, yellow and pink boots that Made Mario's eyes hurt just from looking at them. There was something his dad told him about people who wear brightly coloured boots always get clattered in matches. Mario almost laughed at the thought.

Eventually, Mario's gaze fell on the flopping blonde hair of Marco as he jogged up to the rest of the team. Mario had no idea how a boy who trains twice a day almost every day can have enough energy to play in the school team, especially since he assumed Marco would be miles better than the rest of the team since he was actually making a career for himself from football. 

Marco looked briefly over at Mario's group of friends but didn't react, just averted his gaze just as quickly and focused on the task the coach was telling them to do. Mario wasn't exactly surprised he didn't get a note of recognition from the taller boy, after all, he didn't expect him to run over and start acting like they were the best of friends after just one session.

"Mario, come sit next to me." Alisha said, causing Mario to turn his head back around to face her.

Mario raised an eyebrow, "why?"

"Because." She looked pointedly behind Erik and Mario waited for a moment before turning around and seeing Marc beginning the walk over to their table.

"Ah, okay. Sure." Mario smiled at Alisha first then Erik who seemed completely oblivious to the situation.

He picked his bag up from the floor beside him and switched around so he was now facing the football pitch, all the players dribbling between cones. By the time he had sat down next to Alisha, Marc was at the table and smiled his bright smile at the three of them before sitting down next to Erik. 

"Watching the football again, eh?" Marc laughed, his Spanish accent thick as he pronounced the words still a little bit shakily.

"Yeah, she always does this. Shes unbelievable. It's just some guys playing football you know there's nothing too amazing about that." Erik scoffed, turning to face Marc. "U-unless you like football or something then it's okay, I didn't mean to offend you or anything."

Mario had to hold back a laugh. Erik was the most obvious person he had ever met when he had a crush on someone. If it wasn't for the slight language barrier, Mario was sure Marc would've figured out by now that Erik was completely and utterly gone for him. 

Marc's smile increased, "no, it's fine. Footballs good but I understand some people don't like it." He said.

"Oh look their starting their game!" Alisha straightened up and stared ahead at the pitch, "keep an eye on number 5 guys, that's my man!"

Mario rolled his eyes, "you wish, Alisha." 

"Shut up, Mario, go make heart eyes at Reus or something." Alisha shushed him frantically.

"Heart eyes? At Reus? You must be having me on."

Alisha didn't respond, she was too busy watching the pitch intently, her eyes flickering each time the ball was kicked up or down the field. Eventually, Erik and Marc entered their own conversation about something or other and Mario was forced to turn his attention to the match going on behind them.

It was reds versus blacks, the reds shooting to the right side of the pitch and the blacks to the left. At the moment, it was in possession of the blacks who were knocking it around the defence haphazardly, some passes that were short enough to be easily intercepted should the red strikers decide to put some pressure on. 

As if his thoughts were being projected to the team, one of the reds stormed forward and pick-pocketed who Mario thought to be Jerome Boateng, raced forward one on one with Roman Bürki who looked hopeless as soon as the shot was blasted to his right, completely out of his grasp. When the goalscorer started wheeling away in celebration, only then did Mario realize it was Marco. It was a good finish, Mario had to admit.

Once Mario recognized the other boy, it was hard to stop his eyes from following him as he sprinted across the pitch, arm outstretched at every opportunity as if he was in need of the ball like it was his oxygen source. But it wasn't as if he was a ball-hog, because whenever he got the ball, he'd tap it quickly to a teammate then race into a better position to receive the ball again. It was like second nature to him. He always knew where to go to catch the defenders unawares.

It wasn't long before the red team scored again. This one created by Marco who chipped the ball over the top of the defenders head and into the path of Robert Lewandowski who was never going to miss from that close up and slotted it through Roman's legs. Robert threw a thumbs up to Marco who just smiled in appreciation and looked around. He caught Mario's eye for a moment and looked away smugly. Mario wondered what he was looking so smug for, he'd have to ask him when the time came for tutoring.

"Is it just me, or did you just have a moment with Marco Reus?" Alisha gasped, pushing Mario slightly with her hand.

"Who, the totally straight guy who's going to be a footballer one day? Oh yeah, Alisha, we definitely did. We'll be fucking each other next week." Mario scoffed with as much sarcasm as he could muster.

Alisha giggled, "well, at least tell me how it is."

"Why are you my friend?" Mario questioned with a desperate expression.

"Because your mum pays me."

 

*-*

 

Mario had agreed to meet Marco back at his house at around the same time as two days ago. That had given him enough time to go out with his friends for a bit in town, and to his surprise, Alisha actually held up her end of the deal and brought him a Burger King. And so, he made his way happily back to his house, eager to get back and relax after a stressful week of school. He didn't see tutoring Marco as much of a chore, as long as the other boy was cooperative. 

The house was completely silent to his relief when he came back, there was always a chance that his dad had taken the day off work like he did some Fridays, but after a quick survey of all the rooms, Mario found himself home alone. And so naturally, he raced up to his room and turned on his speaker, blasting the music full volume as he lay on his bed, undoing the buttons on his shirt completely but leaving it wrapped around his shoulders.

The music almost shook his surroundings it was so loud, but at the same time it was so relaxing to feel the bass bumping off the walls and also in his chest. He almost fell asleep a number of times before remembering that Marco was supposed to be coming over any minute now. 

As if on cue, he heard a number of loud taps on his window, breaching through his impossibly loud music. Mario turned his speaker off and opened the window to see Marco crouching on the sloped roof with a worried expression on his face.

"You know you can get serious hearing damage if you listen to your music too loud, right?" He said, clambering through the frame as Mario stood aside.

"Yeah, but it's comforting." Mario reasoned. "Why'd you come through the window? You know I have a door right?"

Marco rolled his eyes, "I did try the door, but  _someone_ wasn't answering."

"Oh. Yeah, sorry I didn't hear."

"I didn't think so. But it's fine." Marco shrugged it off, "sorry if I caught you in the middle of changing."

Mario was about to question what he meant when he realized he still had his shirt wide open, exposing his torso. He immediately turned away from Marco's sight and opened his wardrobe, frantically trying to find something to throw on quickly.

"N-no problem." He laughed it off, hiding his extreme embarrassment under a smiling face.

Marco wandered around for a short while before flopping down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with a relaxed expression. He didn't even have his school bag with him. Mario wondered if he was actually intending on doing any work or just sitting around and doing nothing for the rest of the evening. 

Mario pulled a t-shirt over his head whilst also removing his dress shirt from underneath. He couldn't be bothered to change his trousers, they were comfortable enough to not feel like uniform. A quick glance in the mirror of his wardrobe told him that Marco was already changed and didn't need to borrow any of his clothes this time. Which was quite good considering Mario didn't have any other sweatshirts he didn't care about.

Well, he says he doesn't care about that Dortmund sweatshirt, but it was comfortable, warm and actually slightly fashionable. It was big on him so it completely drowned out Marco, but Mario thought he looked quite cute with the sleeves of the sweater completely covering his hands so they looked invisible. There was something about over-sized sweaters on guys that made him smile. 

However, today, Marco adorned some skinny jeans and a plain blue t-shirt with a black jacket over the top. More classy as opposed to comfortable. But he looked ridiculously good, almost effortlessly good. Mario would have to perfect a look like that for hours, but something told him that it only took Marco a couple of minutes. He always looked put together, regardless of the weather or situation. He was one of the only people who couple pull off the school uniform, and that was saying something because it was really quite ugly. 

"Would you hate me if I suggest something?" Marco piped up, causing Mario to turn around fully to face him.

"Depends on what that something is." Mario replied.

"Well, there's a football match on in a few minutes and-"  began Marco.

Mario shook his head, "definitely not. I've had enough of football. Anyway, we need to revise."

"Okay, one, I forgot my books and stuff so we can't really revise and two, I saw you watching our game at lunchtime, you like football more than you want to admit. And anyway, I just assumed that if your dad likes football you'd have the channels because I don't and I'm sick of streaming all the games."

"If I say yes will you promise to revise every session after this one?" Mario asked, finally giving in because, to be honest, his brain was fried and he didn't really feel like teaching some maths or something.

"Cross my heart." 

Mario sighed and nodded, "Okay, fine."

Marco celebrated like he had just scored a goal and took off out of the room to downstairs. Mario stood shocked for a minute but followed swiftly, picking up the remote from the counter as he passed it. When he arrived in the living room, Marco was already sat on the sofa eagerly, looking to Mario as if to wonder why the TV wasn't turning on by him just sitting there. 

Mario switched it on and found the channel quickly, and sure enough, the match was about to start in around five minutes.

"Can I get you a drink? I'm gonna get some snacks because I'll need them to get through this." Mario murmured, setting the remote down next to Marco so he could change any settings as he wished.

"Just water is fine, cheers." Marco replied, not breaking his gaze from the screen as he analyzed the formations that were beginning to appear. 

Mario nodded to himself and wandered into the kitchen, grabbing a glass from the top cupboard and filling it with some water from the tap. In the cupboard next to the glasses was where his dad usually kept his snacks that he eats during match days himself. Sure enough, it contained a couple of large packets of crisps and various packets of sweets. Mario was allowed one cheat day, right? Usually his dad hates people eating his snacks, but Mario was going back to his mum's in the evening so he would be able to avoid his dads anger for at least over a week, hopefully in which time he would've completely forgotten about it. 

When he returned to the room, Marco hadn't moved a slight bit, his gaze was still completely locked on the screen in a way that surely wasn't healthy. Oh well, Mario couldn't really talk after being busted for listening to his music at top volume. He rested the snacks on the table and handed Marco the glass of water. He took a long gulp then murmured some thanks before placing it back on the table. 

The screen depicted the kick off of the match and who Mario guessed was Dortmund due to their bright yellow jerseys had the ball first. Marco slid closer to Mario and pointed at the screen.

"That's my favourite player right there. Number 9, Nelson Valdez." He gushed with a smile. 

Mario tried not to focus on the proximity at which Marco was to him. If he had turned his head, his nose would've brushed against Marco's cheek and their entire sides were pressed up against each other. 

"Cool, I think I've heard of him actually." Mario managed to choke out, breathing out a sigh of relief as Marco pulled back slightly, still not enough to completely remove the contact between their sides, but it was enough so that Mario could breathe properly without risk of suffocation. 

Marco smiled, "so, did you enjoy the match at lunch? I take it you did seeing as you were watching the whole thing very intently."

"So that's why you were looking at me so smugly." Mario scoffed, "it was okay. You were really, really good."

"Thanks."

Mario turned to Marco just in time to see a slight blush appear on his cheeks. And Mario was confused, surely he was complimented extremely often, his footballing ability deserved endless praise. Perhaps he was complimented so often, he didn't know what to say at this point. Mario just nodded in acknowledgement and looked back at the screen. Dortmund were passing around the midfield well, controlling the match completely. Mario didn't know who the other team were but they didn't look particularly good at this point in the match.

Every so often, Marco would flinch whenever there was a remotely close chance, and Mario felt it against his side. His muscles would tense up through his clothes and onto Mario's bare arms. If Mario hadn't already seen Marco's abs, it would be at this point when he realized Marco was extremely fit, he would make a great professional footballer one day, Mario was sure of that. 

A particularly close chance came and Marco's hand flew to Mario's bicep, "Fuck. That was well close, why can't we finish today?" He questioned, removing his hand as quickly as it landed there.

Mario shrugged and sent a silent prayer that Marco wouldn't keep doing this, it was beginning to make him feel that stupid warm feeling in his chest. He just had to remember that Marco had probably slept with all the girls in the year and that was enough to make that feeling go away.  _He's a fuckboy, a good-looking one, but a fuckboy none the less._ Mario recited in his head, trying not to look at Marco in fear that it could break his resolve. 

Was he really making heart eyes at Marco Reus? At least if he was he wasn't as obvious as Alisha making heart eyes at Mats. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Week two of tutoring and it was actually going quite well. Marco showed up on time and Mario tutored him without many complaints. Sure they had some days where all they could both be bothered to do is look in the vague direction of the books and sit in a comfortable silence before Marco started talking about something or other. But generally, they got work done and Mario was ecstatic that Marco seemed to be understanding a lot of the stuff he was being taught with only a few sessions that went over his head. 

They hardly talked in school, but Mario was okay with that. He didn't need people looking at him and making assumptions and he was sure Marco felt the same. After all, Mario wasn't the coolest person you could be seen hanging out with at break or lunch. 

Alisha had managed to drag their group back over onto the field to watch the football that same Friday and this time Mario wasn't as reluctant as he was at first. It definitely wasn't because he was secretly enjoying watching the football. Not at all. And nor was it because he was enjoying watching one player in particular. Definitely not. 

What Mario hadn't prepared for was Mats fucking Hummels to walk over at the end of the session and ask Alisha if she wanted to go to a party at the weekend. He almost laughed in surprise, a party? His group of friends? Those two things didn't really go together. But regardless, Alisha said she'd accept on the condition that she could invite Mario, Erik and Marc with her. Mats shrugged and said he didn't care because it wasn't his party but agreed. 

Mario didn't really want to go, but he knew Alisha would  _never_ forgive him if he didn't go with her. So, he spent Saturday afternoon before the party in the evening, fretting over what to wear and what he was going to have to do so he looked like he fit in, when he really, really didn't. As Mario stood in front of his wardrobe, trifling through his shirts and trousers to look the least bit presentable, he heard a knock at his window.

Ever since Marco had entered through his window that one time, he hasn't stopped doing so. Mario jumped the first few times he heard it but it was becoming normal to him now, so all he had to do was open the window for Marco and the other boy was slide in with his backpack on his shoulder and a cheeky smile on his face. 

Mario wandered over to the window, still thinking of what to wear and absentmindedly opened it up, turning back around to face the wardrobe as Marco clambered through.

"What are you looking so perplexed about?" Marco asked with a laugh as he sat down on the bed, kicking his shoes off before resting his feet on the mattress too.

"I'm trying to find an outfit for that stupid party tonight." Mario explained.

The bed springs squeaked and that meant Marco had vacated the bed quickly.

"Let me have a look for you." Marco gave Mario a small shove and began pulling out shirts and inspecting them one by one before discarding them to the side carelessly. 

Mario was in two minds about asking him to treat his clothes with a bit more care, but he didn't really mind. Especially since it was Marco. He couldn't really hate the boy, it was too hard to hate that face. Even when it was ridiculously smug and smirk-y.

Marco flung a navy blue shirt over his shoulder and bent down to find a good pair of trousers. Eventually, he pulled a black pair right out of the back of the drawer and made a noise of contentment.

"Perfect. Go try these on." Marco ordered, thrusting the garments into Mario's hands forcefully. 

Mario raised an eyebrow, "really? I barely ever wear this stuff."

"Even better, just trust me." replied Marco.

With a shrug, Mario walked out of the room into the bathroom and pulled off his shirt, replacing it with the navy blue shirt that was slightly too small, but it did hug his figure well. He wasn't as fit as someone like Marco, so the garment hung slightly off his biceps, but it wrapped around his pecs with little extra room which would probably become suffocating, but he guessed he would just have to deal with it.

As for the trousers, Mario wasn't sure he had ever worn them since Alisha had made him buy them when they went shopping a few months ago. For one, they were so tight it almost hurt to breathe and he didn't want to cut off his circulation just to 'make his ass look amazing' as Alisha said. In fairness, they did, but that was hardly the thing to focus on when he couldn't really breathe.

Regardless, Mario yanked the trousers on and stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, he looked alright. Like he made an effort when in reality he really didn't. 

Slightly self-conscious, Mario wandered out of the bathroom and back into his room where Marco was seated on the bed scrolling through his phone aimlessly.

"I don't think this is really gonna work." Mario murmured to catch Marco's attention.

They other boy stared for a moment, addressing each part of Mario's look from top to bottom, leaving a trail of fire as his eyes scanned Mario's body. 

"Why? It looks great. I knew it would." Marco smirked proudly, his side smile protruding once again.

"I kinda can't breathe." 

Marco dismissed the complaint with a 'whatever' and looked back down at his phone. Mario took some time in front of the mirror, still trying to figure out whether this look was worth the pain he was going to feel all night. But the thought that he was probably just going to leave early when he inevitably got bored kept him going and he just decided to suck it up and trust Marco's judgement.

At that moment, he had pretty much completely forgotten the task at hand, so without another word, he fished some books out of the drawer he kept them in and carried them over to the bed, placing them down beside Marco's backpack.

"You ready to do some work?" Mario asked.

Marco looked up from his phone and pulled a face, "but it's a Saturday." He complained.

"That's no real excuse."

"It is if I'm too tired." Marco countered. "Can we do something for a bit before to wake me up."

"I swear if you suggest we go watch a football match I'm done." Mario groaned. He wasn't really lying on that one, there was a difference between watching Marco play football and a bunch of people he didn't really know play on a TV screen. 

"No, I promise. What about truth or dare?" 

Mario scoffed. Truth or dare was for year 7's who wanted to find out who their friends 'top three guys / girls are in the class'. And Mario really wasn't up for that sort of thing, because, first of all, he was gay so that probably wasn't going to be a popular thing to spurt out at a game of truth or dare, and secondly, all of the girls in his year were not particularly his type, even if he was attracted to females. 

"No complaints? Perfect! Let's go." Marco clapped his hands together when Mario didn't respond after a couple of moments. 

The latter was about to complain that this really wasn't what he wanted to do at all, but Marco held up a finger to shush him and adorned an overzealous thinking face that make Mario roll his eyes.

"Okay, truth or dare?" Marco began with a devilish expression.

"Dare." Mario replied. Dares would cause less emotional angst for him even if it did mean he would have to do something presumably stupid, because this was Marco Reus who was giving him a dare. 

Marco pondered for around a minute, his adam's apple bobbing up and down whenever he swallowed in an action that caused Mario's eyes to drop to his neck almost immediately. Was it bad he was thinking of how it would feel to kiss said neck? Probably.

Finally, Marco raised his finger like he had just solved a complex maths formula and chuckled, "I dare you to play the most inappropriate song you know as loud as you can."

Mario pulled a horrified expression with his mouth as wide as he could manage. The most inappropriate song? There were a lot on his phone. And not in that kind of way, most of them he just liked for the rhythm of the song. Most of them.

"Are you fucking serious? My mum's gonna kill me!" Mario protested desperately.

"Is that the sound of someone pulling out of a dare?" Marco asked, cupping his ear to further express his question.

With a sigh, Mario grabbed his phone from his bedside table and scrolled through his Spotify to find the best out of a bad situation and settled on Partition by Beyoncé. It was bad, sure, but he knew of much worse. 

He showed Marco the screen and turned up the volume to as high as he could, cringing as the song reverberated through the room, sending Marco into hysterics. It really wasn't that funny, Mario's mum wouldn't be impressed at all if she could string some of the words together that she would surely be hearing from downstairs. 

"Is that enough?" Mario asked after a minute, itching to turn it off as soon as he possibly could. Marco pulled himself together and nodded, still laughing a few times at Mario's misfortune. 

Once Marco had fully composed himself, Mario asked his own question. "Truth or dare, Marco?"

"Truth." Marco replied instantly.

There was a lot of things Mario wanted to find out about Marco, the boy intrigued him, but he thought better than to pry and just settled on the typical year 7 question:

"Do you like someone right now?"

Marco scoffed, "really? This old question? Whatever. Um, no one as of this moment in time." 

Mario nodded and almost smiled. There was a flicker of hope in his chest before he remembered that Marco is extraordinarily straight and not interested. It didn't hurt to be reminded of that, because there was never really a part of him that thought he could get with Marco ever. 

"What about you?" Marco shot the question back at Mario.

"I haven't chosen my truth or dare yet, Marco, that's cheating." Mario complained with a smug face, finally beating Marco in his own game.

"Fine. Truth or dare?" 

"Dare."

Marco groaned loudly at being tricked. Mario felt proud of himself for not falling into the trap, because then he really would have a problem on his hands. Suddenly, a flicker of deviance sparked in Marco's eyes and he spoke;

"I dare you to tell me if you like someone right now." 

Mario laughed out loud, "you can't do that Marco, you have to actually give me a dare."

"Last time I checked, that was a dare. It even began with 'I dare you'." Marco bit back, raising his eyebrows to create a questioning look.

"W-well, no, because it's just a truth but disguised as a dare. I'm not doing it."

Mario really wasn't in the mood, because he knew if he said he didn't like anyone he'd say it in such a suspicious way that Marco would either figure out Mario's small crush on him or his true sexuality, and neither of those seemed appealing at all.

He was desperate to dodge the question, but due to the look on Marco's face, there was no way the latter was going to let Mario off this easy. 

"Is that the sound of someone pulling out of a dare again?" Marco gasped, staring at Marco deep in the eyes. 

Mario sighed. He'd just have to lie then.

"There's this girl. Her name's Ann-Kathrin. I've liked her for a while now and we talk occasionally like in lessons and stuff." Mario lied through his teeth. Some of it wasn't completely a lie, I mean he really did talk occasionally with Ann-Kathrin, she was a girl in Mario's maths class and they often talked about the classwork together. She was pretty, even Mario could admit that, but so far out of his league it was criminal. He should've picked a girl slightly that was slightly less obvious. 

"Interesting." Marco muttered nodding his head along as if it would help him retain the information better, "I'll help you get laid man, don't worry."

Mario murmured an answer automatically. If only Marco knew that he didn't really want to get laid. At least not by Ann-Kathrin.

 

*-*

 

As soon as Mario walked into the crowded house, he knew this was going to be a long night. The music bounced around him, enveloping all his senses apart from smell, because the air was thick with sweat and the taste of alcohol. It was disgusting and Mario was very close to turning around and walking back out if it weren't for Alisha at his side, locking their arms together protectively as if she knew Mario was thinking of running away.

A couple of people nodded their way as they passed towards the living room which was another sight completely. The floor was littered with red solo cups, items of clothing and food, the sofa was covered in bottles and a couple making out so intensely Mario didn't want to stay another minute in case they just took off their clothes there and then. Sweaty bodies brushed past them bottles or cups in hand on their way either towards the drinks counter or the music room where thumping bass was coming from.

This kind of music wasn't really Mario's thing, but he still tapped his foot along with the beat as it was the best thing he could do right there instead of standing stock still waiting as Alisha talked to a number of people that Mario didn't know. A hand gripped his wrist and before he knew what was happening, he was being dragged in he direction of the music room.

When Mario finally realized what was going on, he looked to see Erik dragging him away.

"You looked like you needed to be rescued. Let's dance." Erik's voice was barely audible as they neared the music room and it began to blast almost deafeningly. 

Mario looked up skeptically, but Erik was having none of it. Instead, he began to dance along to the song, pushing Mario occasionally in an attempt to get the shorter boy to dance. Mario wasn't really in the mood to embarrass himself so he kept his dancing to a minimum, just a few motions that followed the beat like nodding his head and tapping his feet.

A drink was thrust into Mario's hand from someone he had only seen around school a couple of times and he was about to pass it to Erik when the other boy shook his head vehemently.

"No, you should drink that. Loosen up a bit." Erik protested.

A scoff passed Mario's lips. It wasn't as if he didn't drink at all, he'd had his fair amount of alcohol in his lifetime, but not something as strong as this. But then again, if he only took a couple of sips, it wouldn't affect him so much. So he pressed the bottle to his lips and swigged a small amount, hissing as it burnt the back of his throat.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Alisha cheered as she wandered up to the pair, a bottle of blue liquid in her right hand.

Mario laughed, "It's really disgusting but Erik wants me to get drunk so you know." 

Erik complained inaudibly as the song reached its chorus and Mario took another swig in time with the increase in volume. It wasn't that bad in reality. Sure, it stung his throat a small amount, but it tasted alright after that. That may be a dangerous thing as he didn't want to get drunk, especially not on vodka. That wouldn't go down well with his mum if he was up all night throwing up.

The three of them danced for a while, Mario taking three more sips before placing the bottle on the nearest table so he wasn't tempted to drink any more. By that point, the alcohol was beginning to have a small effect on him, not enough to cause him any bodily harm, but enough for him to feel less tense and anxious. He was holding conversations with people he had never really talked to before and was actually enjoying himself much to his own surprise. 

It was almost an hour into the party when Mario's mind even drifted to the thought of Marco. He hadn't seen him yet around the house, but then again he had stayed in the living room and music room to avoid some of the rooms he knew he could smell weed coming from. Mario wondered what Marco was wearing and how he styled his hair - would it be the same as he always did or slightly different? It probably still looked perfect like it was every minute of the day, even after a match. Mario was confused at how he managed it.

Alisha expressed her need for another drink at one point and designated Mario as the drinks collected since he wasn't even dancing. Mario wanted to protest that he was in fact dancing just in his own, less enthusiastic way. But he knew she did have a point and so he grabbed the solo cups of all the people he was dancing with, which turned out to be around ten, ensuring Mario would have a fun time bring all the full cups back when he finished. 

The counter that contained the drinks was just opposite the kitchen and wasn't too far away from his friends, so it wouldn't be that big of a journey back to them thankfully as as he began filling the third cup, he knew he wasn't going to be able to take more than four at a time without spilling it all over himself. So he filled them all and took them back in multiple journeys, hoping the ones he left hadn't been drugged whilst he was gone returning the ones in his hands.

On his final journey, Mario looked through the kitchen door and saw Marco for the first time that night. But at that moment, he wished he hadn't seen him. He was sitting on a chair with a girl wrapped around him and they were making out with as much ferocity as they could manage. Upon closer inspection and a completely different angle, Mario identified the girl as Ann-Kathrin. And that was what hurt the most.

Not Marco making out with a girl, because that was what he expected.

But Marco making out with Ann-Kathrin. The same girl Mario said he 'liked' a number of hours before. 

Sure he didn't actually like Ann-Kathrin, but the idea that Marco cared so little about Mario's feelings that he would go and make out with the girl Mario said he liked hurt Mario in so many ways. The room began to spin and he felt so sick. Was Marco this inconsiderate? He almost felt like crying. He finally turned away and grabbed the rest of the drinks, suddenly eager to leave this house and not think about whatever happened. When he returned to his friends, they were all dancing in completely normal fashion, like nothing had happened and nothing had for them. Just Mario. His heart was being tugged this way and that but they were having the times of their lives. 

"I'm leaving." Mario mouthed to Alisha as he passed. He felt her try and grab his wrist but before she could try and question him, Mario was out of the room and speeding to the front door. He didn't want to be in the same house as Marco fucking Reus. He despised that boy. He was so stupid to think that Marco was actually a nice person, and possibly even one of his friends. But that shit, isn't what friends do. He was fully aware what he was doing and the effect it would have. But he didn't care. He just discarded Mario's feelings like trash. 

The cold air was a welcome break as the blood rushed to head in one quick motion that made him feel so faint he had to hold onto the doorframe to stop himself from collapsing. It took a moment to compose himself, but when he did, that was it. He was out of the door, out of the driveway, out of the street, so far out he didn't really know where he was. But he didn't care. It was a nice release. And it was so late that no one was around. So no one could see as tears dripped down his cheeks ever so slowly. The pain was immeasurable.

But what did he expect?

Marco was just another fuckboy.


	5. Chapter 5

As soon as Mario walked into school he was on the way to the councilor's office. There was no way he was going to continue tutoring Marco after what he did. He should've known that nothing good could come of tutoring the biggest fuckboy in school, it would only end in tears, especially when Mario ended up having slight feelings for him. He couldn't deal with the sight of him any more, he didn't want to look at that smirk or his decision might alter. He might be tempted to forgive and forget. But before he could even think about forgiving Marco, his fist was knocking on the door to the councilor's office rapidly. 

After a moment or two, the councilor opened the door to him and almost looked annoyed for a moment before realizing who it was.

"Mario, how can I help you?" She asked, a smile beginning to form on her face. Mario could predict that she wouldn't be smiling for much longer.

"I can't go on tutoring Marco, I'm really sorry." He said simply, trying to tread lightly so he didn't come across as rude.

Sure enough, the smile dropped from her face, "why's that?" 

"Because I'm finding it difficult to maintain my own studies right now as well as someone else's especially since I have to keep jumping between my parent's houses."

Mario had thought all of Sunday about how to formulate the perfect lie about getting him out of tutoring. Adding in the 'my parents are divorced' line always helps him get out of forgetting to do homework or bringing his book to a lesson, so he hoped it would help get him some more sympathy here. He just needed to be done with everything related to Marco Reus and this was the first step.  

Perhaps he should've thought it through a little more rather than just jumping to conclusions, but what was he supposed to do? Sit and watch him make out with Ann-Kathrin for another five minutes whilst his heart got ripped out of his chest? Mario had better things to do on his Saturday night thank you very much. His heart was just about bandaged up from its slip up but the sight of Marco wrapped in a girls embrace and the feeling of being so blatantly betrayed would still replay through his head for a while.

He fought to push the memories to the back of his head but there was only so much deflecting he could do before he just gave up and succumbed to the waves of disappointment. 

"Why don't you carry on for a little bit longer and if that's still the case at the end of the term we can stop?" The councilor broke his train of thought, "Marco really needs the educational support right now."

Mario shook his head, "I'm sorry, Miss, but I really can't do it. I need to focus on myself."

"Alright then. I'll leave you to tell Marco. Thank you for trying, Mario." She nodded almost understandingly, but Mario knew she was completely unawares of the real reason.

Now the only problem he had left was telling Marco. Which meant making contact with the other boy, which is the last thing Mario wanted to do at that point in time and for many points in time after that one. He was done with blonde haired boys with hazel-green eyes, crooked smiles, devilish smirks and perfectly sculpted abs. That was it. Maybe he should try crush on someone that was actually in his league.

But like the sights and feelings, the remnants of what he felt for Marco wouldn't soon be forgotten. They were still fresh, bright, stupidly hopeful. Thankfully there were lots more guys in the school who were probably much nicer than Marco, perhaps not to look at, but that wasn't the only thing about a person.

When he left the councilor's office, he felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Finally, he was free of day to day contact with Marco. He could focus on himself, doing well in exams and actually living his life. With his actual friends. Not fake ones. 

The school day wasn't meant to start for a while at that moment, so Mario wandered through the hallways aimlessly, making sure he was walking as slowly as he could manage to the place where he met up with his friends before school. He was so deep in his thoughts he didn't want them to be interrupted by Alisha talking endlessly or Erik and Marc making heart eyes at each other. 

He probably looked stupid taking a good ten minutes to walk one length of the corridor, but it helped him collect his thoughts and ideas. To waste a couple more minutes, he turned into the toilets and played with his hair for a while in the mirror, taking advantage of the lack of other people in the bathroom so he could correct his appearance without being silently judged like he usually would be. 

He almost jumped out of his skin when the door flung open; rushedly turning the tap on so it looked like he was just washing his hands. Mario avoided looking up to the mirror for a bit, but when he did, a flash of instant regret burst through him. 

Standing so nonchalantly with Mario's Borussia Dortmund sweatshirt adorning his top half stood Marco. The taller boy saw Mario look up and a smile broke out onto his face. Mario's stomach lurched.

"Mario! I actually need to talk to you. Could we make tutoring a bit shorter today? Coach wants me to get there earlier so we can work on analyzing the match last weekend." Marco explained, leaning back against the wall.

"Oh don't worry. You won't have to worry about tutoring anymore, I've cancelled it." Before Marco could interrupt, Mario continued, "Also, can I have my sweatshirt back please?"

Now he really was being petty. But in fairness it was his sweatshirt and as much as he didn't like football, it was a nice sweatshirt that kept him warm and comfortable - perfect for wearing on a lazy day. Seeing Marco in it made his skin crawl, and even more annoyingly was that Mario didn't know whether that was in a good or bad way.

"Wait what? I mean, yeah sure, but I thought you gave it to me? And why did you cancel the tutoring?" Marco was taken aback so violently, his expression clouded over in less than a second.

"It's my sweatshirt. I want it back. Now." 

"I'm not wearing anything underneath though, and about the tutorin-"

"Now, Marco. I'm dead serious. Just give it to me. You always take shit that belongs to other people."

That stung. Mario didn't mean for it to come out. Ann-Kathrin didn't belong to him. He meant that in a metaphorical sense, but it still held meaning. He could tell that, because Marco flinched and furrowed his eyebrows together.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" He hissed, face changing from confusion to straight up anger. 

Mario scoffed, "Oh you know perfectly well what the fuck I mean."

"I actually don't, but fine. Have this shitty sweatshirt. I don't give two shits about it, nor do I about you."

The words made Mario's repairing heart trip, stumble and shatter into a million pieces on the ground. That was too harsh. That was too harsh on his emotions. He almost had to choke back tears. It messed him up that much. Five words from a fuckboy messed him up that much. Five words that he probably deserved; he didn't expect much different. But the way they were delivered. The way Marco practically spat them out with so much ferocity, Mario could almost feel the pack of rapid dogs Marco was sending with his voice ripping at his neck.

Marco threw the sweatshirt at Mario, letting the garment strike off his chest and onto the bathroom floor. Sure enough, Marco was shirtless underneath and Mario's mind didn't know how to deal with such contrasting thoughts. One part of him wanted to throttle him and yell at him for everything wrong he had done, but the other part wanted to jump at him, push him against the wall and kiss the breath out of him.

"Stop looking at me, just fuck off." Shouted Marco, pushing Mario slightly to emphasize his words. 

"Make me." Mario didn't know where his sudden burst of confidence was coming from, but it made him feel like he had grown a couple of inches and was now standing at the same height as Marco.

"Oh you want me to make you, do you? I swear to fucking God Götze leave me the fuck alone."

Mario raised his head even further and turned it slightly as if inviting Marco to beat the living shit out of him. Because that's what would happen. Marco was a trained athlete, and Mario was a gay seventeen year old who despised sports with all passion in his body. It wasn't going to be much of a match. How long would he last? Ten seconds? Or was that pushing it a bit?

The situation was so close to what his other part wanted but so far away: Mario was slowly backing Marco up, all he needed was to make the move and kiss him. But that would also end with a complete and utter beating up, and Mario really didn't want to go into his next lesson with a black eye. Or the entire school ending up knowing he was gay.

"Punch me then, Reus. Fucking do it." Mario wasn't sure if it was him speaking or his thoughts, because there was no way he would ever be this confident normally.

Marco ran a hand through his hair in exasperation, "no, because I don't want to start a fight with you."

"Why not? Too afraid? Just do it Marco. It'll hurt less. It'll hurt less than having my heart ripped out. It's funny how you care more amount not starting a fight than hurting someones feelings. Really funny. I'm serious, Reus. Punch me. I'm right fucking here."

"What have I done to you, Mario? I'm so confused! Just tell me rather than acting like I know all about it. I can't say sorry if I don't know what to say sorry about idiot." 

Mario just shook his head. Marco knew exactly what he was talking about, he just didn't want to admit that he was in the wrong. Because he was. Who in their right mind would do something like that? He must be a special kind of fuckboy. One that really didn't care about other people. 

He didn't want to look at the boy any longer, so Mario stormed out of the bathroom, keeping the sweatshirt tucked under his arm. Without looking back, he rushed to the front of school. He couldn't be bothered with today. It was already over in his mind. There was no point in being in school that day just to be sitting at the back with thoughts full of Marco.

The walk home took him less than usual. Perhaps it was because he wasn't checking roads as thoroughly was he was supposed to be. He heard a couple or car horns but they were drowned out by his thoughts. Hopefully his dad would be out at work at that point, but he was sure of his ability to fake an illness to him if he wasn't.

The sky was bright and azure blue: the perfect and most ironic contrast to Mario's thoughts and feelings. All around him, people were reveling in the sun, it wasn't like his hometown to be so hot but when it was, people took advantage of it. Mario wished he was able to, but he felt as though he had a small raincloud just above his head, letting raindrops patter on his cheeks like the tears that he wanted to let escape. There was no way he could enjoy the weather.

He didn't use his key to open the front door. He climbed up onto the roof and entered in through his window. Because he most definitely was not over Marco bloody Reus. He was weak, he was stupid, he was sensitive. All of the above. He let someone as irrelevant as Marco push and shove his way into his heart like a drunk at a party; he was always going to cause trouble. But drunks are the key to any party. Mario loved drunks. They made it more interesting. 

He shouted a quick greeting to check if anyone was in, but when no reply came, Mario sunk down into his bed, clutching the sweatshirt up to his chest and taking a deep breath. All at once, the smell of Marco's cologne hit him like a wave. He buried deeper into the garment, letting the comforting scent wash over him. It smelt so distinctly Marco. Presumably because it was the cologne he used every day. But there was something about the scent that just screamed Marco Reus to him. 

Marco Reus. It was the first time since it happened that Mario reflected on what had happened in the bathroom. How Marco had said Mario meant nothing to him. How Marco had told him to fuck off. How Marco had told him to leave him alone. 

The thought of how Marco probably meant everything he said in that bathroom made Mario's eyes sting. And for the first time in a while, Mario let the tears breach their barriers and tumble down his cheeks. 


	6. Chapter 6

Marco spent the rest of his week in a state of confusion. The whole situation with Mario made his head hurt. There was nothing he could think off that he did to evoke such a violent outburst from the other boy. Regardless, it wasn't a huge problem for him, he didn't need the tutoring and although he was beginning to enjoy his time with Mario a bit more than at first, it was still a chore and he could think of many other ways that he'd have rather spent his afternoons. 

He carried on his weeks as normal without the presence of Mario; he played football, hung out with friends, went to school. Completely normal. He went on without a trace of the brown haired boy in his life. Because there was nothing he needed more to clear his mind than to have nothing to do with him. He had a match at the weekend and he wanted to be completely free of all thoughts by that time. 

The school had tried to offer him extra help in place of tutoring, extra lessons or one on one tutoring with teachers, but Marco had declined. He didn't like teachers already, so there wasn't a chance in hell that he was going to sacrifice his time to go and do extra lessons with them. He promised the councilor he'd start doing group study sessions with his friends, but that was just as unlikely. His friends didn't care for school and so didn't see the point in studying. They coasted through on their level of intelligence, whatever that happened to be.

And so he carried on as he had for the majority of his time at this school. He showed little interest and watched his performance in tests drop even lower than they had been before. In his recent maths test, he scored a record low 32%. But the things he got right? Exponential and logarithmic functions. Of course the only thing he did well in was the stuff Mario taught him. 

The rest of his subjects were better, but not by much. He was under-performing and he knew it. It made him want to change, and do more work at home, it really did, but he just couldn't be motivated enough to do so. Every time he looked in the general direction of a book, he was just filled with disgust and turned away. He promised himself he'd try again the next day, but he never did.

Marco saw Mario a couple of times around school; on the other side of the corridor, across the field where his friends always sit on a Friday lunch, disappearing round a corner when Marco turns it. It was obvious Mario was trying to avoid Marco. Obviously Marco didn't mind that, because he needed to be in a Mario-free zone and be away from him for as long as possible until his mind figured itself out. 

"Marco, lets go mate." Mats shoved his shoulder and broke him out of his thoughts about Mario. Again. It wouldn't be long before some of his friends caught on that he wasn't completely alright.

It was a Friday. So he had football practice. It took a lot for him to actually go, because he was exhausted from the intensive training he had had this week for the match on the weekend. It was an important match, one that decided his teams position in the division, so coach had them doing more match play than usual to stamp out common mistakes and develop a strong game plan. 

But Mats being Mats had forced him to go. There was nothing that boy loved more than football but he hated doing it by himself. He said it was because he preferred playing with Marco because Marco was the best player on the team, but the latter knew it was because he just didn't like anyone else, despite how hard Marco tried to convince him that Robert and Roman weren't that bad. 

"Yeah. Yeah, sorry, Mats. I'm ready now." Marco replied, shifting his boots onto his feet. He was sure he was getting blisters now, the boots were so worn they were digging into his heel. He should really get a new pair before they started really hurting. 

Mats nodded and flashed a toothy smile, waiting for Marco to jump to his feet before they jogged onto the field, greeting their coach with a short wave.

"Just match play today, guys, I want to do start picking the team for the tournament in two weeks time." Coach shouted over to them. 

Great. That was just what Marco needed before his match on the weekend. A practice full of match play today. As if he hadn't done enough of that recently already. Regardless, he nodded and wandered over to the small collection of other players on the pitch.

He wasn't going to look over at the benches. He promised himself he wasn't going to. There was no reason to any more, Mario was out of his life. Gone. They weren't whatever they were before so there wasn't any point in pretending they were. He locked his eyes on the floor and didn't look up until his name was called to go into one of the two teams. 

He was put into a team with Mats, Roman, Robert, Papa, Marcel, Christian, Julian Weigl, Maxi Phillip, Nuri Sahin and Benedikt Höwedes. It was a good team, and he liked playing with Christian, Maxi and Robert. Robert was effectively his strike partner, because although Marco was meant to be a centre forward, he always found himself playing the furthest forward out of all of his team, running off through balls through the centre of the defence. 

They had first kick off which Marco didn't know if it was a good thing or not. He had his superstition of always wanting to take the kick off in the second half because it meant they could dictate the first few minutes of the second half and possibly get a goal to calm any nerves or get on the front foot quickly.

Regardless, Marco hugged the halfway line as Christian got ready to play the ball of to someone in their half. Coach blew the whistle and he was off, wandering at first to throw the defenders off to make it seem as though he was having a lackluster game, but as soon as he heard Mats shout "Long!" from the defence, he knew that was his cue to sprint forward, looking over his shoulder to check the trajectory of the ball and how fast he would have to go to catch it and how he'd cushion it down into his path.

After an agonizing couple of seconds, the ball appeared over his shoulder and dropped perfectly into his path. He brought his boot out to meet it and managed to control the ball with only a little bit of a bounce off his foot. It left him just inside the penalty area, towards the left of it, so he shouldn't really be thinking of shooting from here. But as he looked around, he saw that barely any of his teammates were around. Christian was making a run on the left wing, but if he passed there it would give time for the defenders to get back and the chance would be gone.

Robert was running forward in an attempt to give some support, but he was being tightly marked by Jerome so Marco thought better of it than to pass to him. Maxi hugged the opposite touchline and Marco couldn't pass that far, and much like Christian, the pass would invite much more pressure than they needed at that point. So Marco ran forward. The nearest defender was Naldo, who was making ground on him from behind, but not fast enough to cause him much trouble if Marco carried on running at the speed he was going. 

"Shoot, Marco!" Coach yelled from somewhere behind him and that was all the incentive he needed to wrap his right boot around the ball and curl it towards the top right corner. Manuel leaped off the ground and reached a gloved hand towards the corner. The way Marco struck the ball was so sweet that he was almost certain it was flying in. But just at the last moment before it whipped into the net and sent it billowing, Manuel managed to get his fingertips to the ball, sending it against the crossbar and out for a corner.

Marco placed his hands on his head and his eyes widened, "great save, man!" He congratulated Manuel, a shocked expression still clear on his face. 

Manuel looked as though he couldn't believe it either, he got up off the floor and clapped his hands together with a smile.

"That's what I'm talking about! Great shot, Marco and great save, Manuel!" Coach was shouting so loudly Marco was sure the receptionists could hear on the other side of the school.

For the first time since he got there, Marco's eyes surveyed the field. He knew he promised himself to not look towards the benches, but that was the first place they landed. They landed on Mario and his friends in particular. He recognised Erik Durm from his maths class and that Alisha girl Mats was talking about the other week. But he didn't know the other boy. 

Mario's gaze was locked on Marco and as usual he could feel it. He didn't even need to catch his eye to know that the hazel eyes of the other boy were on him. It made him nervous and almost self conscious; he had never been able to  _sense_ when someone else was staring at him before. There was something about Mario's piercing gaze that made his skin itch and feel hot. 

Eventually, Marco let his gaze drift to Mario. The other boy didn't bother diverting his gaze. Their eyes met for a long moment and Mario  _smiled_. Not one of his usual blinding, sun-like smiles, but a small one, a nervous one like he wasn't sure if it was appropriate to smile at Marco.

Marco wanted to respond to the smile, he really did, but he was too proud. He wasn't ready to accept Mario's 'apology' if you could call it one because that would probably mean they would be back to at least being civil to each other, and Marco didn't want to be in too much contact with Mario because it messed with his head.

So he didn't smile. He looked away and didn't show a single sign that he registered the gesture. It made him sad to disregard Mario like that, but he needed it. He needed the reinforcement that he was completely over it and he didn't want anything to do with Mario. Because he didn't. Not even a couple of looks here and there. He wanted nothing so he was going to give nothing. It was only fair seeing as Mario hadn't even told him what made him so mad.

Christian walked past Marco and tapped him on the shoulder; two times, which meant they were doing the second corner routine. The one where Marco runs to give support to Christian, pulling his marker out of position, but not actually receiving the ball, just acting like he was to divert the attention from Mats on the edge of the box who was lining up for a half volley into the top corner. 

They had practiced this corner routine a number of times at lunchtime, and it always caught the opposition off guard. The defenders usually marked zonally, so they didn't catch on to Mats wandering aimlessly towards the general direction of the box, head down and the most uninterested face he could possibly make on his face. 

Marco began inside the box then sprinted forwards towards Christian, dragging Naldo out of his position and causing Jadon Sancho to run to make up the space Naldo vacated, leaving a perfect gap for Mats to slice the ball into when it came to him. 

Christian raised his arm and dinked the ball to Mats. The pass was perfect; it was the perfect height, perfect speed, perfect aim. All Mats needed to do was to connect with it to send it flying in. And he did. The sound of boot meeting ball filled the air as Mats swung his foot at the ball. Even through the crowd of players, Marco could tell it was hit as perfectly as the ball into him was. The ball smashed into the net with so much force Marco was surprised it didn't fly off completely. 

Mats yelled in celebration and ran over to Christian, picking up the smaller boy and praising the ball incessantly. Marco joined them and ruffled Mats' hair. 

"What a shot!" He said.

Mats just smiled in response and gave Marco a light shove, "it was all about your run! The space wouldn't have been there otherwise."

"Lies, it was absolutely sailing in regardless." Marco scoffed returning the shove. 

Mats laughed and disappeared under a huddle of other players as they jumped on top of him to congratulate him. Marco turned away from the huddle and once again let his eyes drift to Mario. But the other boy had gone. Alisha had her hands on her head in shock of the goal and Erik was stuck in conversation with the boy Marco didn't know. But Mario was no where to be seen.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Sure, it was a stupid idea. A very stupid one at that. But he needed to go. If he didn't he was never going to solve all of this shit between them, and he at least wanted to do it so that they were at least on looking-at-each-other terms. Mario hated watching football, but here he was. At one of Marco's games. He managed to get in to where they were playing with minimal bribing and stood in the area with all the other spectators, standing just behind so Marco couldn't see him. 

Frankly, Mario didn't know what time kickoff was, or even who Marco was playing against, but he was only really here to talk to Marco, so he wasn't exactly focused on the game. Thankfully, he only had to wait a couple of minutes before the players filed out onto the pitch.

He spotted Marco right away; his blonde hair was unmistakable but even without his hair, Mario could spot him from a mile away. He was wearing the red and white colours of Rot Weiss Ahlen and a seemingly brand new pair of bright orange boots that glowed against the weak sun. The players lined up and shook hands professionally like they do in real games, leaving Mario to wonder if this was a special game or one that held some kind of meaning. 

As quickly as they got onto the pitch, they walked into their positions and the whistle was blown. It was so quick in fact that Mario didn't even realise they had started until he saw Marco flash past him on the left wing hand already outstretched to call for the ball from the left back. 

The way he ran, his hair flopping up and down but still retaining its perfect appearance made Mario's heart hurt. He wasn't over Marco yet, clearly, otherwise why would he be here, but there was still something about him that made Mario's heart lurch uncomfortably and it was bad. He needed to get over this. Hopefully once he cleared all this up, they could go back to what they were before the tutoring; acknowledging each others existence but nothing more than a look here and there. 

Although that would hurt Mario, it was better than disregarding each other and acting like the other doesn't exist. Because however tempting that may be, Mario couldn't deal with it, it would cause him serious emotional trauma. 

He daydreamed for a while, thinking about what on earth he was going to say to Marco to first of all get the other boy to listen to him and second of all, to sort all this shit out. It would be a challenge. If there was something Mario learnt from tutoring Marco, it was that he was so stubborn. A challenge is an understatement. It would take Mario all his strength to get through to him, and try to talk him out of hating him.

The few spectators around him all took in a large breath and exhaled in unity. Mario turned his attention back to the pitch just in time to see a shot fly over the bar from Ahlen. It was close, maybe just a few inches over. Marco applauded the striker from where he was standing on the edge of the box and turned to run back and defend the oppositions goal kick. 

His work-rate always surprised Mario. It was like he was everywhere on the pitch at once: flying into tackles; making cross-filed passes; taking shots inside or outside the box; heading balls away in corners. He covered the entire field, and yet didn't look half as tired as he probably should. A fine layer of sweat covered his forehead, but apart from that, you wouldn't be able to guess he had played around thirty minutes of football already.

Perhaps it was because the game was quite interesting, but it was going really quickly. Mario hadn't expected it would be almost half time yet. It was an open game, chances happening at both ends but it was a mix of good goalkeeping and some poor finishing that kept the score at 0-0. 

Ahlen had one more good chance before half time when Marco ran into the box and squared it for the striker only around 6 yards out but somehow, the defender managed to get a foot to the shot and it tumbled just wide. Even Mario exhaled sharply when that happened, something he hadn't done in a football match before. Maybe Marco was right when he said he'd convert Mario into being a football lover. 

When the half time whistle blew, Mario clapped the players off the pitch, staying well clear of Marco's view by hiding behind a particularly tall man. The players looked to be rather unsatisfied, but Mario thought they played well, and should carry on as they did into the second half, just perhaps a change around in the strike force to try and encourage some better finishing.

Marco had stood out from what little he watched of the match. He had been everywhere as usual and played some excellent passes into a number of players, creating great goalscoring opportunities that really should've been capitalized upon. The other team (who Mario still didn't know) played well too, but Ahlen were by far the better team and probably deserved to be in front. 

Mario only had to deal with 45 more minutes before he could go and talk to Marco. That is, if Marco doesn't refuse to talk to him. There was a very high probability he would and Mario wasn't looking forward to it. All he wanted to do was tell Marco what he did wrong and say that was the end of it. He didn't want to be friends, he just wanted to not hate each other. In reality, he probably should hate Marco after what he did, but it was rather unfair seeing as he never did like Ann-Kathrin in the first place, however the fact he told Marco he did and the other boy made out with her regardless was the problem.  

He was prepared for Marco to make up some bullshit excuse like "I was drunk, I don't remember it," or "I completely forgot you said you liked her," but for once he wasn't going to take it. He was going to confront Marco and tell him that he isn't a pushover and he wants to know why the fuck he did what he did. Because it was a dick move. Mario half wondered how Marco would feel if he did it to him. But he's not a fuckboy, so he wouldn't.

Unfortunately, Mario knew that probably wasn't going to happen. He knew he'd accept any excuse Marco was going to come up with, no matter how many times he tells himself he won't. Because he's a weak person, and ultimately, he likes Marco, and you do stupid things for people you like. Marco would just have to come up with any excuse he could and Mario would accept it and move on. He would like to think it was going to be different this time, but he knew it wouldn't be.

He hadn't told any of his friends about the whole situation, especially not that he liked Marco, because he knew Alisha would never let that go. He told her he liked this one girl when they were in year 7 and she still brings it up now whenever they see her and it drives Mario crazy. That was before he had come to terms with his sexuality and anyway, you never really like someone in year 7, its just meaningless crushes that only sometimes end in week long relationships where you never talk to each other. 

He wasn't going to tell any of his friends until they were older, much older, when they had left the school and away from Marco bloody Reus so there was no way he could be teased about it. They only had around half a year left before they left school, so Mario only had half a year left of Marco until he went to university and then he'd never see Marco again. He half couldn't wait and half could. 

Eventually, the players made their way back onto the pitch seemingly riled up as they were clapping their hands together and yelling words of encouragement to each other. Marco was at the forefront of this: standing in the middle of the team huddle and giving out instructions to each player individually. They yelled "Ahlen!" in unison before breaking the huddle and walking into their positions. 

Mario could see that Marco was moving into a more central position with a new player being substituted on to go on the left wing where Marco had vacated. Mario thought that was a better position for him, it meant he could have even more of an impact than he was already having as well as the fact that he was in a better position to score goals which was definitely one of his strengths. Mario smiled as Marco crossed himself and whispered a few words to the sky, asking for all the luck to be on his side as he went into the next half. 

Ahlen had kickoff and Marco seemed happier because of it. Mario saw him jumping up and down on the touchline with a small smile on his face, ready and waiting for the whistle to blow to start. When it came, he wandered into the opponents half, reminding Mario of what he did at the start of the game in practice on Friday. He guessed that was what he was trying to do because an inaudible shout sounded and Marco set off sprinting, catching the defence unawares as he brought the ball down into his stride just inside the box. 

The goalkeeper was aware of the danger but was off his line too late. Marco swept the ball through his legs into the net. The spectators around Mario jumped up and clapped at the goal, elated at the beautiful move and beautiful finish. Through the celebrating crowds, Mario saw the goalkeeper clattering into Marco, still running forward to try and smother the shot but unable to stop once the ball went past him. Mario was unable to celebrate. The noise was sickening and he could hear the yell of pain from where he was standing.

A member of the medical staff rushed on quickly and helped Marco sit up slightly. The boy was clutching his ankle with one hand and biting the other to stop himself from screaming out. The goalkeeper of the other team had walked over and was trying to apologise, but Marco was too gone through the pain to notice. Mario played with his lip. It looked painful. He wanted to run onto the pitch and check if Marco was okay, but that would probably make it even worse. So he stood still. Trying not to focus on it too much. He would feel worse otherwise.

The goal stood, but none of the Ahlen team were celebrating. They were either squatting next to Marco to ask if he was okay, or wandering around nearby, eager to hear of any news that came from the medical team. The staff member made a substitution signal which signified the end of Marco's match. Mario sighed and turned away. Everything was going to shit. When he looked back, Marco was on his feet, hobbling very slowly towards the main building where the changing rooms are. In that moment, Mario had an idea. Another stupid one, but perhaps his only chance now of talking to Marco. 

When Marco disappeared with the medical staff member into the building, Mario made a move there as well. Slipping through the door without drawing any attention to himself. He saw the escorted figure of Marco limping into the changing rooms, so he walked into the nearest room, keeping the door slightly open so he could see when the medical staff left him alone. 

It was a good ten minutes or so before the figure walked past the door, and back out onto the pitch. Mario pushed open the door of the room he was in and made for the changing rooms. It was now or never. He was going to have to do it at some point, and now may be the only point he would be alone. Perhaps it was not the best time seeing as Marco had just got injured, but he couldn't wait any longer. 

He didn't think as he walked into the changing rooms. It was larger than he first expected for a small team like Ahlen, but he could expect how full it would be with the entire team in it on matchday. He spotted Marco with his back to him in the corner of the room, ankle propped up on a chair and bound with a temporary bandage. The door slammed behind Mario and Marco whipped his head around. This time, it was Marco's turn for his face to fade of colour.

"What are you doing here?" Marco whispered almost inaudibly.

"I came to talk." Mario responded, taking a seat next to Marco.

Marco didn't turn to face him, "I don't want to talk. You're just going to shout at me for no reason again."

"No, Marco. I want to tell you why I shouted at you." 

Finally, Marco faced Mario. His eyes were slightly bloodshot which suggested he had shed a couple of tears as a result of the injury. But Mario still thought he looked fine. More than fine. Perfect perhaps. His hair was tousled, shirt sweaty, eyes shining. He did things to Mario that no one else had before. It was so cheesy and cliche, but it was true. Marco was changing his perception on fuckboys. And maybe that was dangerous.

Marco nodded, and invited Mario to start talking. Mario wanted to talk, but the words weren't forming in his mouth properly. He was scared. Scared of how Marco would react, scared of it he'd come across as rude or judgmental. But he just said fuck it. If Marco hated him, it couldn't be much worse than what they have now.

"It's about Ann-Kathrin. The fact you kissed her at that party on the same day that I said I liked her. And don't say you didn't kiss her because I saw you and her making out in the kitchen. I trusted you in telling you I liked her and then you go ahead and kiss her, what if I had really liked her? And you just go ahead and do that to me? I honestly thought we were close enough to not do that to each other. I convinced myself you were just another fuckboy so thats why I cancelled the tutoring and everything. I don't want to tutor someone that's betrayed my trust like that. I know it's unreasonable to complain over this when I don't actually like her but if I did and you did that it would've been the ultimate betrayal. So yeah. That's why I shouted at you." Mario explained in as much detail as he could. He didn't really mean to confess that he didn't actually like her, but he was already speaking so quickly it didn't seem to matter.

"What do you mean you didn't actually like her?" Marco said.

"Really?" Mario sighed, "out of everything I just said, you picked that out? No, Marco, I never liked her, I just didn't want to tell you the truth."

Mario was treading a dangerous path. One that would probably lead to him blurting out the fact he liked Marco.

"And what is the truth?" 

Marco couldn't have said anything worse at that point. Mario didn't have a response that wasn't 'I like you' or 'I'm gay'. 

"I'm not going to tell you. Who knows you might kiss that person again." 

It was a low blow, but that was the only thing that came into his head at that point. He was struggling to keep his composure with those hazel-green eyes bearing down on him like a pack of dogs.

"I get that kissing Ann-Kathrin was a dick move. She's hot and I just forgot about everything in the moment, so I'm sorry about that I guess. But if you don't like her then it's all fine, right?" Marco replied.

Mario was exasperated, "no it's not fine! Because if I did like her and you kissed her then it would definitely not be fucking fine!"

"Okay, okay. I understand. I'm sorry, Mario, I really am. I didn't mean for it to hurt you."

"Well it did, Marco. It really did. I felt so betrayed and I honestly thought we were closer than what you obviously thought we were. It was  _such_ a dick move and I would hate you for it but I just can't hate you."

"Why? You should hate me." Marco whispered.

Mario was back to walking the dangerous path. Everything Marco was saying was probing Mario to confess. It was almost like he already knew.

"I can't, Marco."

"Can't what? Can't hate me or can't tell me why you can't?"

"I can't hate you, Marco. Because, fuck. I like you." Mario wasn't thinking clearly. He was too busy scanning Marco's appearance, falling for him over and over again.

Marco tilted his head to the side and that was when Mario's words registered to him.

"L-like as in a friend, I'm not gay or anything." Mario fought to fix what he said.

The other boy didn't say anything. Just looked into Mario's eyes, as if trying to force the confession out of him. And for the first time, Mario felt as though he wanted to confess. What was the worst that could happen? Harm an already dying friendship? That was the least of his worries. Maybe the only thing that could happen was if Marco told everyone, but even then, Mario was leaving at the end of this year so he'd only have to endure teasing for half a year, a little of that being exam time as well. 

He was being stupid again. But did it really matter? He had come this far. He may as well go all the way.

"Actually you know what? Fuck it. I like you, Marco. A lot. More than a friend." Mario said, not breaking eye contact for a second. The confidence he felt in the bathroom in his fight with Marco brimming up again.

Marco once again didn't respond, but his mouth opened slightly and he raised an eyebrow. The silence lasted for almost a minute, the eye contact not once drifting. Mario was purely captivated in the moment and he never wanted it to end. The feeling of being in Marco's gaze was lighting his skin on fire. 

Mario bit his lip softly, "Marco?" The other boy just nodded in response. "Can I kiss you?" 

Marco inhaled sharply before diving forward, placing a hand on the back of Mario's neck and tentatively pressing his lips on the other boys.

Mario clutched onto Marco's bicep, using it as an anchor to stop himself from slipping away. Marco's lips felt like fire against his own, but it was a feeling he never wanted to forget. He let his lips part slowly whilst shifting closer to Marco, but the other boy kept the kiss simple, like he had no idea what he was doing. 

Sensing his nerves, Mario pulled away slowly, yet left his hand on Marco's arm.

"That was my, um, first time... doing, uh, that." Marco whispered, eyes drifting to the floor.

"Kissing a guy?" Mario asked.

When Marco nodded, Mario took his head in his free hand and tilted it up so they were back to making eye contact again. The confidence in Marco's eyes had faded considerably and was replaced by a vulnerability Mario had never seen before.

"Hey, it's fine. It was nice." Nice didn't begin to cover it, but Mario didn't want to overwhelm Marco.

A small, crooked smile breached the sides of the taller boys lips and Mario felt accomplished. 

Perhaps being stupid should be how he lives his life from now on.


	8. Chapter 8

If Mario thought the period before his reconciliation with Marco was bad, he certainly wasn't prepared for what happened after. Sure, he expected some awkwardness, but what he didn't expect was to be flat out ignored, and even worse than that, insulted. A shove in the corridor here and there, a dirty look from across the room. It hurt Mario more than it probably should have and was beginning to have a negative impact on his will to even go to school in the mornings. 

The idea of someone he liked being so horrible to him meant he wanted to be as far away as he possibly could from that person. If he avoided Marco at all possible times then he wouldn't be confronted by the other boys hateful expression atop a face that Mario was borderline infatuated with. There was something about the way Marco acted that made it impossible for Mario to completely hate him. 

He skipped more days in the space of two months than he had in the past two years of his high school career: either acting like he was going to school then coming back when his mum or dad left for work or just faking illness where possible. It got slightly out of control when he faked being ill for almost an entire week, and by the end his mum was talking about taking him to the doctors, which sparked a miraculous recovery as Mario knew he couldn't keep the facade up to a trained professional. 

Alisha messaged him most days he was off, asking what was up and leaving Mario to think of as many lies as he could. He hadn't told any of his friends even a scrap of information about the whole thing with Marco and he knew he wasn't going to; it would just be easier to keep it to himself for a long time. On the days when he did come into school, he wished he didn't and resorted to walking around with his head down and skulking between lessons like they were the last place on earth he'd rather be.

Today wasn't any different. He woke up with little to no enthusiasm for the day ahead, but he knew he had important exam preparation that he needed to be in for so skipping wasn't really an option. When he arrived to school and walked to the bench on the field that had now become their customary meeting place, Marc was the only person there, engrossed on something on his phone so much so that he didn't see Mario walking up until the latter had thrown his bag on top of the bench.

"Hi." Mario sighed, resting his head in his hands when he sat down.

Marc looked up from his phone and locked it immediately. "Are you alright?" He asked.

"Yeah. Just tired I guess, didn't get much sleep last night." 

"No, I mean in general." 

When Mario looked up, Marc was looking at him with seriousness written all over his face. He seemed genuinely concerned. 

"Yes. Well, no not really but I'm fine." Mario wasn't eager in getting into the root of his problems to he attempted to deflect as much as possible.

"What's on your mind? Seriously. You're hardly a scrap of yourself compared to earlier in the year. Has something happened at home I don't know about? You know you can tell me anything, I'm your friend that's what I'm here for." Marc spoke with empathy lacing his voice. From what Alisha had told him, Marc was a very good listener and often knew just what to say at just the right time. So if Mario wanted to trust anyone with this whole situation, it would be Marc. But he didn't want to trust anyone. So he kept his mouth shut.

"No, it's fine Marc, I'm fine. Just stressed about exams is all." 

"But you never stress about exams, Mario. You're so smart you don't need to. Please tell me what's wrong. Or if you don't want to tell me the whole thing, just a part of it."

Mario sighed deeply. He wished he could open up to Marc, but it was so hard when all he wanted to do was forget about the whole thing and never think about it again. Discussing it with someone would cause the memory of everything that happened to come flooding back all of a sudden and overwhelm him like a tidal wave, and he wasn't sure how many times that could happen before he began to drown.

He could manage to pass it off as exam stress if he tried hard enough but he knew Marc would see past that: the other boy was extremely smart and would easily be able to see past Mario's feeble lies.

"It's just stupid stuff with the person I like - or used to like I guess - it's not a big deal." Mario settled on at least telling part of the truth. That way he didn't have to go into enough detail to harm his emotional state.

Marc narrowed his eyes, "Marco?" 

"M-Marco? You think I like Marco?" Mario spluttered, completely taken aback by the suggestion. I mean, it was true, but was it in any way obvious to other people?

"I have a strong feeling you do, yes."

Mario was crumbling. Now he knew Marc knew it would be harder to lie about anything. Would it be easier to tell the truth? Perhaps. But he was never in a million years going to do that unless it was physically tortured out of him.

"Well, maybe I did, yeah. But it's not a big deal. Shit happened and I'm over it now." Mario deflected once again. 

"Care to explain?"

"Not really, no."

Marc continued to look at Mario with narrowed eyes - like he was trying to force the confession out of him just by looking at him. Mario tried looking anywhere but the brown hues and instead focused on the gate behind where Marc was sitting. 

"If he did something bad to you, Mario, I want to know, we're friends and I want to be able to stick up for you."

Mario felt instantly guilty. Marc was seriously acting like he cared and that made it so much harder for him to continue lying.

"He just betrayed my trust kinda." Kinda was an understatement but Mario didn't want to play it up.

"How so?"

Mario took a sharp intake of breath. No matter how much he desperately wanted to keep everything a secret, there was still part of him that wanted the comfort. Perhaps if he only told Marc a part of the story it wouldn't hurt, right?

"Well, I told him I liked this girl who I don't actually like but I said I did because I didn't want to tell him I liked him or I was gay and then I saw him kissing her that same weekend at the party." Mario bit his tongue at the end to prevent him from saying something he shouldn't.

Marc sighed so deeply and Mario could almost see smoke rising from his head. "That's so fucking awful. Don't worry your mind with him, Mario he's just another fuck boy that isn't worth your time. I'm sorry it's got you so worked up, no one should be treated like that."

"Yeah but then he said so-" Mario slapped a hand over his mouth at just the right moment before he spilled everything. 

"He said what? Sorry? That doesn't really excuse it, Mario." 

"But then I kissed him - or he kissed me I guess and then it all seemed fine and now he's just ignoring me and being rude to me and I thought it wouldn't be like this at all we had it all sorted out but then he just goes and acts like I don't exist! I told him I liked him and everything and he's just disregarded everything and fucking hell I've tried so hard to stop myself from telling someone all this but turns out I'm a stupidly weak person who can't keep their mouth shut, first to Marco and now to you. I just honestly thought it was different with Marco, we got on like friends and I thought I could go on having a crush on him without voicing it but then it just fell out and god I wish it hadn't. Life would be so much simpler if I hadn't." 

When Mario had finished and looked into Marc's eyes for the first time in a while, he saw the other boys face contorted in disgust. And without warning, Marc stood up and stalked off in the direction of the entrance to the field. Mario sat in surprise for a moment before turning around and seeing the path that Marc was taking: straight into the face of Marco Reus.

Mario scrambled to get up off the bench and chased after him, shouting his name without any luck because Marc was already face to face with Marco, shouting inaudible things complete with hand gestures and actions. Marco seemed completely unfazed, watching Marc with a cocky smirk playing on the sides of his lips. When Mario walked into earshot he instantly wished he hadn't.

"Why the fuck would you do shit like that? Do people's emotions not matter to you or something? Because if so you're gonna have a fucking hard ass time making friends. You can't just go around betraying peoples trusts and acting like it has no effe-"

"I'm sorry, what were you saying? I wasn't listening." Marco interrupted with a shake of the head like he was clearing his thoughts.

Marc seethed at this remark and gave Marco a staggering shove, using the extra couple of inches he had over the other boy to his advantage.

"Shove me again and I swear to fucking God I'll put you in the hospital." Marco hissed, giving Marc a shove back.

At this point, Mario was standing off to the side of the whole thing, observing from a safe distance. But as soon as he saw Marc's fist make contact with Marco's cheek, he knew he had to step in. But his presence was hardly beneficial as, as soon as Marc played the first punch, the scene in front of him erupted into a scrap with hands flying everywhere and Marco eventually managing to tackle Marc to the ground.

A large crowd of people were beginning to gather around the two boys as they each took turns at punching and kicking anywhere they could. They were shouting words of encouragement to both boys and some were even filming the entire thing on their phones. Mario felt sick to the stomach: this was his fault. If only he could keep his God damn mouth shut.

"Marco, stop, please!" Mario whimpered, placing two hands on his shoulders and attempting to drag him off where he was sitting on Marc. But Marco simply shrugged his shoulders as forcefully as he could and carried on flailing his arms in the direction of Marc's face - that, thankfully, he was covering with his own arms.

"Marco!" Mario tried again, this time shoving him from the side and managing to dislodge him enough so that Marc could scuttle from underneath him and take to his feet again. "Just leave him alone!"

"He fucking started it!" Marco growled, jumping up and making in the direction of Marc again, but Mario saw this and stood in his way - placing two hands on his chest and pushing backwards so he stayed still.

"Walk away before a teacher comes and we all get in trouble." Mario lightly tapped on Marco's chest to get his attention and it seemed to work. Those perfect hazel eyes connected to Mario's brown and he seemed to get the message. 

Without another word, he turned tail and walked off, letting his shoulder crash into Mats' as he passed, a signal to make the other boy follow which he did with a long sigh. Mario watched him leave for a minute, making sure that he wasn't going to come back for a round two and turned back to see if Marc was okay. But he was already on his way back to the bench, shaking the hand with which he punched Marco by his side as if that was helping the pain go away. 

Mario didn't know what to feel. On one hand, he should be annoyed at Marc for taking everything so seriously and confronting Marco about the whole thing, but he also felt strangely happy that someone had stuck up for him, and more importantly, stood up to Marco Reus. Mario was sure that wasn't something the school fuckboy was used to, so it felt even sweeter that it was someone Mario knew that did it to him. 

And now that someone other than Mario himself knew what happened, he felt like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders and he could finally relax properly. He had someone to talk to about new developments and get advice from on how to make everything back to how it used to be. Before tutoring that is, Mario wasn't sure he could be that weird mix of friendship and non-friendship with someone that he had finally fully admitted he had a crush on.

All he needed to do was pretend Marco Reus didn't exist. But that was going to be hard, seeing as Mario's best friend had just given him a nose bleed.


	9. Chapter 9

Ever since Marco told him off for listening to his music so loudly, Mario had started to listen through headphones. It was stupid, because it didn't really help with reducing the noise, and perhaps caused more harm to his ears than just listening out loud, but he felt like it was doing him some good, so he did it. 

He didn't want to turn his music down, because that would be like accepting that Marco was right, and Mario didn't want to admit it, so instead he found a way to follow the other boys advice, but not in the way he was probably supposed to. 

Partition by Beyonce blasted in his ears as he shuffled through a few sheets of papers on his bed. He was procrastinating over a history essay that was due in on the Monday, it was a Sunday and he had been procrastinating all day. He didn't want to do it, of course he didn't, but he knew he had to. It wasn't as though his teacher didn't like him or anything, so he probably could get an extension and get away with doing it for another day, but there was something about making up excuses that he seemed to be incabable of doing these days.

It wasn't a hard essay in theory, just a long one. Mario reasoned that as soon as he started, it would only get easier. But starting was the problem; he just couldn't do it. He bit the tip of his pen and shuffled through the sheets again, trying to find a scrap of inspiration in the notes they were given in class. All he needed was a good point to start with, and he was off. He half wanted to ask Alisha what she had written, but then remembered it was Alisha he was talking about, and she probably wouldn't have done it at all. She was just as much of a proctastinator as Mario was.

The song changed to a slower beat and Mario closed his eyes for a quick moment. The notes of the music swam through his ears and for the first time in a long time, he felt singularly at ease. He hadn't felt this way since way before Marco came into his life, and it felt good to be rid of worrying about the blonde haired boy. With Marc standing up to him and simultaneously giving Mario someone to talk to, the latter was able to almost forget the entire thing happened and move on with his life.

It also helped that Marco didn't suit a bruised nose. 

Mario didn't realise how long he had been daydreaming for until a more fast paced song came on, causing his eyes to fly open as if he was scared by the change in tempo. His moment of reflection was interrupted, but perhaps it was for the better, because he really did have to finish this essay before it got to be too late. 

For what seemed like the fifth time, Mario flicked through the papers and studied them harder, turning down the volume of his music as if it would help him see better. 

In the end, Mario settled for a less than impressive starting point and built up from there. It didn't matter if it was a shit essay, just so long as he did it. 

And so he wrote for a while, pressing pen to paper and blurting out as many frankly unrelated facts as he could in an attempt to save the essay. It was too far gone in his opinion, but at least he'd get marks for content, regardless of how little sense he was making.

He took a break after the second paragraph. Walking around his room to the sound of his music that he only then realised he hadn't turned back up since the start of the essay. It felt nice to be able to hear the noise of the surroundings at the lower volume, but didn't feel as immersive. Mario turned the volume back up to normal. 

He was just about to sit back down on his bed and continue writing when an almost silent knock sounded from somewhere in his hearing. At first he thought it to be his bedroom door, but when he opened it, there was no one on the other side. Not that there should've been, his mum was out at work until late, so he had the house to himself. It was with that realisation that his heart sunk violently into his stomach. If he knock wasnt at at the door, then it would have to have been at the window, and only one person knocks at the window. Marco Reus.

Determined to show off the confidence that he really didn't have, Mario sat down atop his bed and ignored the invitation, simply nestling his earbuds further into his ears to immerse his hearing to the max. But this time, the knock just came louder. A continuous rapping against the glass that drove Mario to near insanity. 

He wanted nothing more than to just be able to turn away and not let Marco in, but he was as weak as a newborn baby and had no self control. 

So he walked over to the window and started out at the blonde boy for a second. The latter pointed at the lock on the other side of the glass, prompting Mario to let him in. Mario held eye contact for a long moment, then reluctantly opened the window, turning away as he did so, so he was back facing his bed.

"What do you want?" Mario asked, turning back to face Marco with a sharp whip around. 

Instead of replying, Marco just leapt forward hungrily and kissed the frown from Mario's face. His hands ran up through his hair, pulling it gently to elicit a gasp from the shorter boy. The kiss was so much different to that of the previous one. Before, it was chaste and innocent, but now it was all roaming hands and wet, bruised lips pressing against each other with forced urgency. 

Marco slipped one hand down and flitted it beneath the fabric of Mario's shirt, smoothing the warm skin underneath. But the cold from Marco's hand made Mario flinch, and all at once he realised what he was doing.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Mario disconnected their lips and shoved Marco back, instantly missing the contact and rush of adrenaline.

"What do you think I'm doing?" Marco countered.

"No, no I can't do this with you Marco. You can't flat out ignore me one day then want to fool around the next, that's not how it fucking works. I'm not here to be your stupid toy so stop treating me like one." 

Marco looked almost shocked, like he wasn't expecting such a violent outburst. 

"But I thought you wanted t-"

"I did before you starting treating me like shit and ignoring me." Mario spat viciously.

Marco worried his lip, "I'm sorry! Okay? I'm sorry. I didn't know how to process what happened so I thought the best thing to do would be to push you away. And I know that's not the right thing to do at all, but I wasn't thinking straight." 

"You should've just said that instead of doing all this. Do you know how hard this has hit me? Here I was truly believing that we were in a good place with our relationship, and then you go and be so rude to me every day. I stopped coming into school because I was too afraid of having to face you ignoring me or shooting me dirty looks or shoving me in the corridor. It was so awful, Marco, I honestly thought I had done something wrong. But no, you were just being a dick."

Marco's eyes shone like he was fighting back tears. He started forward slowly, testing to see if Mario would shrink away from his advances. But upon receiving no sign of disgust, Marco wrapped an arm round Mario's back and rested his head upon the other boys shoulder. 

They stood there for a while. Periodically, Marco would whisper a soft apology in a low tone as if he was scared someone else would hear apart from Mario. The latter just breathed in the scent of Marco and enjoyed the moment. He wasn't sure yet if he was ready to forgive him, but at that point in time, all that mattered was the sharp smell of that cologne Mario breathed in like it was the drug keeping him alive. 

Marco's hair brushed his chin in a comforting way as well as a silent reminder that Mario was alive and awake, and not dreaming the whole situation. 

The contact was lost slowly as Marco pulled back to look into Mario's eyes. Mario saw the colours shifting in the taller boys eyes, watching as the light caused them to change from amber to hazel to a light brown and back again. He was captivated in the gaze of Marco and he never wanted to be let out. He felt special until his sight, Marco had a way of making Mario believe he was the only person in his life just with a simple look. 

As Marco's eyes grew bigger, it was only then that Mario noticed he was leaning in once more and so in a moment of probable stupidity, Mario met Marco halfway and their lips moulded against the other perfectly.

It was slower, less urgent, more filled with unspoken emotions. It made Mario's head spin out of control because this really was all he hoped it would be. The taste of Marco's lips were something unlike what he had ever experienced and yet he felt like he had been tasting them his whole life. Attaching onto them just felt so incredibly right, like nothing else mattered in his life up to that point. 

Mario let himself thoroughly melt into the other boys grip, playing his arms upon Marco's shoulders either side of his head and wrapping one hand around to play with the short hair growing on the back of his nape. Marco had one hand steadying Mario's head and the other caressing the small of his back.

Mario opened his mouth tentatively, not sure if Marco felt ready to deepen the kiss, but as soon as he felt their bodies pull closer together due to the pressure Marco was now applying to his back, Mario wasn't sure he needed to worry. 

Marco returned the deepening of the kiss by very gently using his tongue to swipe the bottom lip of the shorter boy, making Mario involuntarily groan in anticipation. The smirk that Mario felt against his lip made him even more hot and bothered, even if he was encouraging Marco to be a cocky little shit. 

An expletive left Marco's mouth as Mario tugged on his bottom lip, worrying it the same way he was doing earlier. The hand Marco had on the small of his back slipped under his shirt and this time Mario didn't flinch, he just revelled in the contact. He felt fire along every inch of skin Marco was touching in a way he had never felt before, it was so new a feeling he didn't know what to do other than slide his lips off Marco's and move down to his jawline: pressing short kisses along it until he reached the earlobe, whereby he dropped down to suck a part of exposed skin on Marco's neck. 

At this action, Marco let out a moan that was fit to be in a porn movie and Mario felt weak in the knees. How such a simple noise had such an affect on him he had no idea, he just needed to hear more of it. 

In a very sudden movement, Marco had backed him up against the corner of his bed, Mario could feel the mattress along the back of his knees. Eager to once again be the confident person he really wasn't, Mario let himself fall back, but took a handful of Marco's shirt so the taller boy ended up hovering over the top of him. Marco whispered a "fuck" and smirked again, taking a space in between Mario's legs and resuming the kiss. 

Mario kept hold of Marco's shirt and used it to press their bodies closer together, if he even thought that possible. He played with the edge of the garment for awhile - tugging the bottom of it and lifting it and dropping it teasingly until Marco broke from the kiss and pulled it off completely. Mario exhaled sharply and hungrily ran his hands along every part of Marco's exposed torso. The expanse of muscular skin made his heart race faster than he was sure was healthy.

Marco made the move to tug the shorter boys shirt off as well, but Mario's hands flew down to secure it in place, suddenly extremely self conscious.

"Are you okay?" Marco asked, looking Mario in the eyes.

"Y-yeah, I'm just... Embarrassed I guess." Mario sighed, willing the blush that was forming on his cheeks away. 

"Trust me?" murmured Marco softly.

If Mario was being honest, he didn't, but his body was disconnected from his mind and he felt himself nod. 

Very tenderly, Marco began to lift the shirt up off Mario's skin with one hand, and using the other to smooth the skin he was revealing. Mario dropped his head back and simply enjoyed the feeling of fire once again travelling across his skin, trying not to focus on the self-deprecating thoughts in the back of his mind. When the shirt was finally off his body, Marco slipped down and began to press soft kisses in random places along Mario's body. The hitch in Mario's breath was painfully audible as the new feelings washed over him like a wave of pleasure.

Every kiss Marco was placing along his skin felt like he was lighting a match, and the heat was spreading to every part of Mario's body.

Eventually, Mario had had enough of the focus being on him and placed two hands on the skin of Marco's biceps, pulling him up so they were facing level before then rather forcefully flipping the two around so Marco was left underneath - his eyes widened in surprise that pushed Mario on.

A smirk played upon the smaller boys lips as Marco continued to stare up in wonder at Mario taking the lead. Determined to prove himself as at least somewhat experienced, Mario laid himself flush against the boy underneath him and revelled in the noise that escaped Marco's lips.

"Fuck me that felt good." He gasped, feeling their hips press together to give them the contact they were craving.

Mario hummed in agreement and captured Marco's lips in a long, greedy kiss - sucking on his lip whilst very slowly gyrating his hips. At that point, the other boy could barely speak; the only sounds he was making were breathy groans that were swallowed by Mario's lips but still audible. 

"D'se it feel good?" Mario whispered, trying hard to suppress moans of his own.

Marco's eyelids were fluttering up and down frantically, "yeah, so fucking good. Don't stop. Please."

And Mario didn't intend to.

He had Marco writhing with pleasure under him. Was he really going to stop?


	10. Chapter 10

Erik was the first person to question why Mario was so happy. A smile had never left the boys face since he had walked into school, and Erik knew Mario was never usually happy in school, because, I mean, who was? Sure, he got good grades and worked for it, but he never actually enjoyed it. 

"What's gotten into you?" He said, finally fed up with the brunettes mood being wildly better than everyone else's.

Mario just smiled wider, "not much really."

Erik didn't believe a word of it and instead turned to Alisha, who was looking at Mario as if he wasn't Mario at all, and was instead someone else.

"Seriously, Mar, have you won the lottery or something? You haven't stopped smiling since you've arrived, and it's really quite unnerving."

Mario wished he could tell them everything that happened, but he knew it was impossible. Not only would Marco kill him, but he also didn't trust Alisha to keep her mouth shut. So he kept his zipped. A knowing look from Marc showed that at least one person knew, and that was alright by him. He knew Marc wouldn't say a word.

"Just had a good breakfast is all. Mum got Coco Pops." Mario shrugged and tried to force the smile from his face, but it was damn near impossible. 

His skin was still on fire from Marco's touch and every time he closed his eyes images of everything came flooding back: Marco's tousled hair, Marco's bare chest, Marco's wanton expression. It almost made him bite his lip at the thought. He needed more of Marco in a way he hadn't experienced with anyone before. Every moment he spent away from his side felt like a moment wasted. And perhaps he should be worried by that, but he wasn't the slightest bit interested in anything other than the blonde haired boy.

Alisha huffed and took a look at her phone, "it's time for lessons. Come on Mario we've got English. I'll update you guys if he ever stops smiling."

Erik and Marc laughed at Alisha's comment and flung their bags over their shoulders. Mario would've laughed along if he didn't already know he probably never would stop smiling for the entire day. 

As they made their way to English, Alisha filled most of the conversation with stories about her recent plan to try and make Mats jealous by openly flirting with one of the other boys on the football team, she just needed to find someone who was willing to play along. Mario put in a few words here and there to make it seem like he was paying his full amount of attention when in reality he tuned out as soon as he heard the word 'Mats'

She continued the conversation up until they walked through the door, whereupon they were greeted with the image of a new seating plan, setting the two from being next to each other to being on opposite sides of the classroom. To be honest, Mario wasn't entirely surprised; he and Alisha did talk a lot. 

The two of them groaned simultaneously at the thought of being moved away from each other but settled down without much trouble. Alisha could get on with anyone like a house on fire so it was never a problem for her when a new seating plan was announced. 

Mario on the other hand had little idea at all about who the girl he was sat next to was, so he kept his head down and worked hard for the majority of the lesson, finally succeeding to push Marco from his mind for at least 15 minutes. English was never his strongest subject so perhaps that gave him the push he needed to focus on something else for the first time that morning, even if it was for something as boring as poetry. 

The clock at the front of the room read half an hour left of the lesson to go when Mario looked at it for the first time. They were doing independent studies of poems given to them by their teacher and Mario had pretty much finished. I mean, there's only so much you can read into a poem that was quite literally about a man on a boat, right? He was sure his teachers would disagree, but he could think of a lot of things he'd really rather do that weren't analysing language techniques the poet used.

His phone vibrated very softly in his jean pocket - a feeling that effectively kept him from falling asleep. Phones were allowed to an extent, but it really depended on the teacher, and Mario had seen his English teacher take phones away before, so he took it out and held it under the table out of view to be safe.

 **from : marco :)  
** can u meet in the maths toilets in 5?

Mario put a hand over his mouth to stop himself from smiling at the text.

 **to : marco :)  
** yh i'll try

 **from : marco :)  
** kk see you then ;)

If that winky face wasn't a good sign, Mario didn't know what was. His heart was already racing at a rate that was about 20 above healthy just at the thought of running his hands through Marco's hair again.

Irritatingly however, the minutes seemed to suddenly crawl by. Whenever Mario looked at the clock, it seemed to only have been 10 seconds from when he had last checked. It took him about a minute to get to the maths toilets so it wasn't as if he could leave earlier. He wanted as much time with Marco as possible, and so that meant leaving the classroom as late as he could. 

Mario was a good enough student to be able to get off with being in the toilet for a bit longer than was really necessary, so he banked on his English teacher knowing this and just turning a blind eye to it.

Eventually the clock reached to a minute before their agreed time and Mario's hand flew up into the air. He had worried about his teacher not being able to see his hand up as his face was buried in a couple of books he was marking, but the flurry of movement was enough to draw his attention and he stood up and walked over to where Mario was seated.

"Can I go to the toilet please?" Mario asked before his teacher had even reached him.

A few seconds passed where Mario was intently watched through squinted eyes before his teacher nodded and turned back to his books. That was all the signal Mario needed to jump up from his chair and walk out as calmly as his excited body could manage. He fired off a quick text to Mario to say he was coming and made his way towards the maths toilets that thankfully were on a route that didn't take him past many windows, so the amount of weird looks he received were kept to a minimum.

When he arrived into the maths block, he just about saw the door to the toilets close and a smile struggled its way onto his lips again. And so with a spring in his step, he pushed open the door himself and was greeted with the sight of Marco as the other boy fixed a few strands of hair in the mirror. At the sound of the door opening, his head whipped around and his lips were drawn into a lop-sided smirk.

"C'mere." Marco took hold of Mario's hand and walked them into one of the bathroom stalls where he locked the door behind them and took a seat on the toilet lid. "Not the most glamorous spot, but you've gotta take what you can get y'know?"

Mario just sat down atop Marco's lap and pressed their lips together like he had wanted to do ever since the other boy had left his house the night before. His hands made their way into Marco's hair and tugged on it lightly in an action he knew Marco loved.

Marco's lips slid from Mario's and slipped down to his neck where they bit and sucked on the skin there, "how long d'you have in here?" He asked outside his assault on Mario's neck.

Mario sighed in pleasure, "I'm sure I could stretch my teacher to five minutes. And you?"

Marco rose back to eye level and planted a singular kiss upon Mario's lips.

"Don't think my teacher likes me too much, so I've probably only got three." 

"Better make good use of it then."

Marco bit his lip as a smile formed on his face, "I agree."

Lips met lips again as Mario resumed the contact, moving his hands from Marco's hair to down his clothed chest - quite obviously wishing the material was off altogether, but settling for running his hands underneath the tight shirt and along the skin underneath. He wasn't even aware he was rotating his hips against Marco's crotch until he felt Marco's dick firming against his thigh. 

Neither boy seemed to notice much as they both continued in the throes of passion; letting their lips mould together like that was the only thing they were created to do and roaming their hands anywhere they could reach. 

Mario eventually sensed their time was up and checked the time on his phone.

"Shit, it's been like four minutes. I'm so dead." Marco laughed despite his predicament and pressed a last kiss upon Mario's lips.

Mario smoothed down his shirt and tore himself up off Marco's lap, lending a hand to the other boy which he took gratefully. They unlocked the bathroom stall and stopped in front of the mirror to correct their rather dishevelled appearance. Mario's hair was flying up in crazy directions and his face was flushed a deep red; both of which he couldn't really do much about. So he ran a hand hopelessly through his hair and hoped the wind would make it look less like it had been ruffled by a pair of hands. 

"Great, now I have to go back to lessons with a hard-on." Marco sighed, rather unceremoniously adjusting the bulge in his trousers.

"I could always help you out with that." Mario smiled teasingly. 

A groan passed Marco's lips, "you're making it worse!"

Mario laughed and said his goodbye, making sure the coast was clear outside before walking out and back to his lesson, the taste of Marco Reus still fresh on his lips.  


End file.
